One of the first tasks to complete in the development of an organization EnMS is to decide what to include in and exclude from the EnMS. This typically means deciding which activities are included and which parts of your organisation are excluded.
It is not necessary to include everything. There may be some very minor energy sources that you decide are not significant enough to put resources into managing. There may also be geographical or organizational boundaries which you want to exclude.
The reason to do this is to be clear what you are managing and what you are not. It is important to document the results of these decisions.
In many organisations this is a simple task, it is all energy using processes within the boundary fence. However there are some cases of complex situations where is is not so straightforward.
How to implement
ScopeDefines what activities are or are not included in the EnMS; energy sources and processes.
Make a list of all the energy sources in the organisation. These are all of the energy sources that are purchased or that are brought in from outside the boundary of the company. Typically they include electricity, natural gas, other fuels including oil, coal, propane LPG, etc. They will all have bills associated with their purchase. Your finance department will have a list of all energy suppliers.
Decide which are within the scope of your EnMS. These are the ones you will actively manage and to which you apply all the requirements and principles of energy management.
Consider all energy consuming activities in the company, are they all included. If any are excluded document them and the reason(s) for the exclusion.
Is water management included? While water is not an energy source, its management is very similar to energy management and many organisations choose to manage it on the same system. The same applies to other utilities such as nitrogen or other process gases bought in bulk.
BoundariesThese identify where the system starts and ends in terms of physical or organizational limits
Boundaries are normally geographical or organisational limits as to what is included in your EnMS activities.
Examples of the questions to answer and decisions to be made on scope and boundaries are:
Are all the buildings in the facility to be included?
Are all factories in the organisation to be included? This will only apply if a system is being developed at a corporate level. It might be decided to pilot the concept in one or a small number of facilities.
Are all departments included?
Is transport included?
Note:
If you have cogeneration, is it owned or operated by you or by a third party? If it is operated by your staff then it would normally be part of the scope of your EnMS. The fuel used in the cogeneration plant is a purchased energy source. If the cogeneration plant is operated by a third party, then normally the metered electricity and heat are energy sources in the plant.
If you use compressed air or steam in the organization there are two possibilities:
The organization purchases this compressed air, so it should be included as an energy source in the scope of the EnMS.
The organization produces the compressed air with their own compressor, generated by electricity. In that case compressed air should not be included as an energy source because electricity is the energy source. The same analogy applies to steam and other utilities.
What is this?
One of the first tasks to complete in the development of an organization EnMS is to decide what to include in and exclude from the EnMS. This typically means deciding which activities are included and which parts of your organisation are excluded.
It is not necessary to include everything. There may be some very minor energy sources that you decide are not significant enough to put resources into managing. There may also be geographical or organizational boundaries which you want to exclude.
The reason to do this is to be clear what you are managing and what you are not. It is important to document the results of these decisions.
In many organisations this is a simple task, it is all energy using processes within the boundary fence. However there are some cases of complex situations where is is not so straightforward.
How to implement
ScopeDefines what activities are or are not included in the EnMS; energy sources and processes.
Make a list of all the energy sources in the organisation. These are all of the energy sources that are purchased or that are brought in from outside the boundary of the company. Typically they include electricity, natural gas, other fuels including oil, coal, propane LPG, etc. They will all have bills associated with their purchase. Your finance department will have a list of all energy suppliers.
Decide which are within the scope of your EnMS. These are the ones you will actively manage and to which you apply all the requirements and principles of energy management.
Consider all energy consuming activities in the company, are they all included. If any are excluded document them and the reason(s) for the exclusion.
Is water management included? While water is not an energy source, its management is very similar to energy management and many organisations choose to manage it on the same system. The same applies to other utilities such as nitrogen or other process gases bought in bulk.
BoundariesThese identify where the system starts and ends in terms of physical or organizational limits
Boundaries are normally geographical or organisational limits as to what is included in your EnMS activities.
Examples of the questions to answer and decisions to be made on scope and boundaries are:
Note:
If you have cogeneration, is it owned or operated by you or by a third party? If it is operated by your staff then it would normally be part of the scope of your EnMS. The fuel used in the cogeneration plant is a purchased energy source. If the cogeneration plant is operated by a third party, then normally the metered electricity and heat are energy sources in the plant.
If you use compressed air or steam in the organization there are two possibilities: