Energy Discussion

HOUSTON — Texas is still the nation’s leader in wind-generated energy, while Iowa has dropped to fourth in the nation behind California and Minnesota, according to the American Wind Energy Association.

The trade group said Texas expanded its wind-energy capacity by 57 percent in 2007. Nationally, more than $9 billion in investments helped U.S. capacity grow by 45 percent last year.

Industry officials said 2008 is poised to match those levels.

The installed capacity for Texas jumped to about 4,300 megawatts at the end of 2007, from about 2,700 megawatts one year ago.

Iowa, which previously was listed third in wind energy, has fallen behind Minnesota, which produces 1,299 megawatts of wind energy. That’s 26 megawatts ahead of Iowa.

California has about 2,400 megawatts.

What is energy conservation? Energy conservation is an action to save energy and reduce energy consumption.

Why is it so important to save energy and reduce energy consumption? There would be many explanation, but surely that we already know that energy source is limited, and the energy cost is increasing day by day. When energy supply is low, the price will be high. For the limited ability to purchase, the only option is to save.

Next we will discuss a few alternative to conserve energy. What is the first thing to do? Lets take a simple management principle : PDCA : plan – do – check – action. First thing to do is planning and the most important thing to do in planning is information gathering as first assumption in plan-making.

So, in the first phase, we shall gather information as much as possible about our energy profile (from source to waste). This process is called the “Energy Audit”.

Next : What is Energy Audit?

The simplest definition for an energy audit is as follows: An energy audit serves the purpose of identifying where a building or plant facility uses energy and identifies energy conservation opportunities.

There is a direct correlation between audit cost (i.e your effort to collect information) and amount of energy you could save. So, it also important, that first we shall determine what kind of audit that will be performed.

Then the second is we shall determine the focus of energy saving will be performed. Will it be from the process, or from the total energy consumed? Or both? Each focus would bring different result and different effort.

Next we will discuss further about types of audit and the differences.