| ISO launches project committee to develop international standard for energy management |
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| Wednesday,April 30,2008 Posted: 15:41 BJT(0741 GMT) |
| From:UNIDO Article type:Reproduced |
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has just approved the creation of a project committee (referred to as ISO/PC 242) mandated to develop an international standard on energy management.
In support of the standards development process, UNIDO and China's Standard Certification Center (CSC) have convened a working group to meet in Beijing, China, 9-11 April 2008. UNIDO initiated a dialogue on the development of an international energy management standard at an expert group meeting on Industrial System Optimization and Energy Management Standards in Industry in March 2007, which included representation from the ISO Secretariat. As the result of that meeting, a request was submitted from the countries represented at the meeting to the ISO Secretariat to consider undertaking work on an international energy management standard.
The standard will provide all types of organizations and companies a practical and widely recognized approach to increase energy efficiency, reduce costs and improve their environmental performance by addressing both the technical and management aspects of rational energy use. The standard is intended to be broadly applicable to various sectors of national economies, including utility, manufacturing, commercial building, general commerce, and transportation sectors, and therefore, could have influence on as much as 60 % of the world’s energy demand.
ISO Secretary-General Alan Bryden commented: “The urgency to reduce GHG emissions, the reality of higher prices from reduced availability of fossil fuels, and the need to promote energy efficiency and the use of renewable energy sources, provide a strong rationale for developing this new standard building on the most advanced best practices and existing national or regional standards”.
Following the successful examples of the ISO 9000 series on quality management and the ISO 14000 series on environmental management, the project committee ISO/PC 242, Energy management, will consider the development of a standard containing relevant terms and definitions and providing management system requirements together with guidance for use, implementation, measurement and metrics.
The standard will be based on the continual improvement and Plan-Do-Check-Act approach utilized in ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 to provide compatibility and integration opportunities.
The future standard is expected to:
provide organizations and companies (utilities, manufacturers, commerce, buildings, transportation, both private and public) with a well-recognized framework for integrating energy efficiency into their management practices
offer organizations with operations in more than one country a single, harmonized standard for implementation across the organization
provide a logical and consistent methodology for identifying and implementing improvements that may contribute to a continual increase in energy efficiency across facilities
assist organizations to better utilize existing energy consuming assets, thus reducing costs and/or expanding capacity
offer guidance on benchmarking, measuring, documenting, and reporting energy intensity improvements and their projected impact on reductions in GHG emissions
create transparency and facilitate communication on the management of energy, promote energy management best practices, thus reinforcing the value of good energy management behaviours
assist facilities in evaluating and prioritizing the implementation of new energy-efficient technologies
provide a framework for organizations to encourage suppliers to better manage their energy, thus promoting energy efficiency throughout the supply chain
facilitate the use of energy management as a component of GHG emission reduction projects.
The secretariat of ISO/PC 242 will be held jointly by the ISO members for the United States and for Brazil: ANSI (American National Standardization Institute) and ABNT (Associação Brasileira de Normas Técnicas).
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