Energy Management - Reference 

Municipal Energy Management (MEM)

At present many municipalities have heavy financial problems. Investments in energy saving measures (i.e. refurbishment of energy installations or energy savings) are usually set aside despite all environmental standards, or are only undertaken when there is no other option to preserve the buildings.

However, considerable amounts of energy can be saved even without the need for massive investments through optimization of the available technology and raising awareness and motivating the users to save energy. This is the lesson from the „Municipal Energy Management” service that UTEC has been providing for local administrations of the region of Bremen (Harpstedt, Stuhr, Thedinghausen, Weyhe) for the past years.

The municipal energy management includes an extensive supervision of the considerable real estate property of a municipality (schools, the town hall, sports halls, etc.) for a certain period of time. This includes:

  • permanent on-site presence through regular visits and keeping in contact with all stakeholders
  • energy controlling through a monthly evaluation of consumption data
  • optimization of the available technology utilizimg metering technology
  • dissemination of information to facility managers, users, and to the administration
  • definition and initiation of low-expenditure measures

Through MEM the municipalities were able to save between 12 and 25% of the energy consumption of the buildings included in the project within a time period of between 2 years (Harpstedt) and 5 years (Weyhe) (see graph)

The savings in all municipalities were considerably higher than the cost of the supervision project. That allowed the administrations not only to reduce the environmental pressures on their territory, but already during the MEM project to lighten the strain on the municipal budgets. After completion of the UTEC activities a part of the savings will persist, so that a single investment would lead to a lasting reduction of costs.

UTEC’s municipal energy management services thus present a possibility for the municipalities to achieve economic and environmental goals without any risk.

 

 

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