New Energy Assessment Standards for Industrial Systems

In early 2010, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) published four new standards that establish requirements for conducting energy assessments at industrial facilities. 

Improving the efficiency of industrial systems increases profitability and reliability, and makes better use of assets. Many industrial facilities have the potential to increase the efficiency of their systems, but have difficulty doing so because there is no market definition for energy efficiency assessment services. Lack of a definition creates problems for service providers in establishing market value for their services and for consumers in determining the relative quality of energy assessment services.  

Making Industrial Systems More Efficient

Use of these new standards should increase both the quantity and quality of energy assessments performed.  The assessment standards are built on a foundation of work by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Industrial Technologies Program over the last 10 years, which included energy savings assessments of industrial energy systems, software, tools, training and publications on how to identify and take advantage of industrial energy efficiency opportunities. 

As of March 2010, 2,305 energy assessments had been completed, and 1,705 plants had reported a total of $232 million per year in implemented energy cost savings, with an average energy bill reduction of 8 percent.  The new standards were developed by individuals involved with conducting these assessments. 

The Four Standards

The new standards establish procedures for assessing each of the four systems in any industrial facility. The four standards are:

• ASME EA-1-2009 Energy Assessment for Process Heating Systems
• ASME EA-2-2009 Energy Assessment for Pumping Systems
• ASME EA-3-2009 Energy Assessment for Steam Systems
• ASME EA-4-2010 Energy Assessment for Compressed Air Systems

The energy assessment standards are intended to assist plant personnel in identifying cost-effective projects that often have short payback periods by addressing the topics and requirements for organizing and conducting assessments, analyzing the data collected, and reporting and documentation.   
As part of this effort, accompanying Guidance Documents, which provide technical background and application details for utilizing the Standards, are currently under development, and ASME expects to publish them by late-2010.

Helping Industry Meet Superior Energy Performance Criteria

The new standards are a contribution to the framework for assisting U.S. industry in meeting the energy intensity improvement criteria of Superior Energy Performance, a forthcoming ANSI-accredited manufacturing plant certification program of the U.S. Council for Energy-Efficient Manufacturing, a partnership of U.S. industry, government and other organizations.

In addition to the standards, the U.S. Department of Energy is supporting the development of a complementary Certified Practitioner program.  The ANSI-accredited Certified System Practitioners will conduct system assessments in accordance with ASME system assessment requirements and assist plants in establishing procedures to continuously improve system energy efficiency. 
The standards are available from ASME at http://www.asme.org/Codes/.