Peak electricity demand in South Africa will exceed the available operational generation
capacity in 2007. The state utility Eskom is addressing this challenge, inter aha, with the
implementation of the Demand-side Management (DSM) initiative. The aim of DSM is to defer
the building of additional power stations by modifying the end-user pattern to reduce
electrical load during the morning and evening peaks. At the end of 2005 the DSM
programme has only achieved 30°/o of its target. Some of the biggest problems are the lack of
knowledge on how to perform ESCO audits and availability of tools and procedures to enable
Energy Service Companies (ESCOs) to evaluate DSM potential.
Studies in South Africa have shown that 20°/o of the total municipal energy is utilised in
commercial buildings. Additional investigations have shown that in the commercial sector
approximately 50% of energy is used for air conditioning. Energy savings of around 30% can
be realised through improved management procedures and retrofit projects of HVAC systems
of existing buildings.
Telecommunication companies own and operate a large portfolio of diverse buildings. It was
shown that these buildings are very inefficient in terms of energy usage. Performing ESCO
analyses on these building portfolios present huge savings opportunities for the building
owners as well as load reduction opportunities to help meet DSM targets.
ESCOs however face major problems in evaluating DSM projects on telecommunication
facilities. Some of these problems are: time to perform the ESCO audits on such a large
portfolio of buildings; skill levels of available personnel; lack of experience and structured
audit process; availability of information; data capturing of information; determining the
impact of the retrofits and calculating the savings and financial benefits of retrofits.
Obtaining approval for DSM projects is also a lengthy process. Smaller ESCOs cannot afford to
commit resources to ESCO investigations only to recover their investment after project
approval. Having an ESCO procedure that will speed up the audit process will help the ESCO
to minimise resources that need to be committed to these investigations. Having a tested and
reliable ESCO procedure will also help Eskom since they will receive more and better quality
DSM proposals.
A new ESCO procedure for telecommunications facilities was developed. The primary
requirements for the new ESCO procedure are that it should be simple, stable, fast and
accurate. This procedure is evaluated against the known energy management opportunities in
telecommunication facilities.
Some of the benefits of the new ESCO procedure are: time taken to perform ESCO analysis on
all types of buildings is drastically reduced; lower qualified personnel can be used to perform
the ESCO analysis; any type of HVAC system configuration can be accommodated; new data
capturing procedures ensure that only essential data is captured; integrated simulation
software is used that can easy and accurately simulate the building operations and retrofits on
a building; retrofit options suitable for telecommunication facilities are identified; contribution
to the DSM programme is evaluated; financial evaluation of the retrofits and feasibility for
DSM funding and results are integrated into a standardised reporting format.
The new ESCO procedure was implemented on several case studies within the
telecommunication infrastructure. Five different types of buildings were selected to implement
the ESCO procedure. Each step of the procedure was evaluated and tested against the
requirements of the new ESCO procedure.
It was proven through implementation that the new ESCO procedure is successful in solving
the unique problems in performing ESCO analyses for telecommunications facilities. Valuable
insight into the problems that can occur during the ESCO process was highlighted, and
recommendation for future work was presented. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Electrical Engineering))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2006.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:NWUBOLOKA1/oai:dspace.nwu.ac.za:10394/1693 |
| Date | January 2006 |
| Creators | Van Rensburg, Johann Francois |
| Publisher | North-West University |
| Source Sets | North-West University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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