Initial Findings from US Department of Energy’s Better Plants Virtual in-Plant Training on 50001 Ready

Wei Guo, Thomas Wenning, Jennifer Travis, Michael Stowe, Kristina Armstrong, Sachin Nimbalkar and Eli Levine
Additional contact information
Wei Guo: Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN 37831, USA
Thomas Wenning: Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN 37831, USA
Jennifer Travis: Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN 37831, USA
Michael Stowe: Advanced Energy, 909 Capability Drive, Raleigh, NC 27606, USA
Kristina Armstrong: Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN 37831, USA
Sachin Nimbalkar: Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN 37831, USA
Eli Levine: US Department of Energy, Washington, DC 20585, USA

Energies, 2022, vol. 15, issue 15, 1-15

Abstract: Manufacturing facilities use about 35% of the domestic energy in the United States every year. Implementing an effective energy management system (EnMS) is one of the most important approaches to improve energy efficiency. However, the implementation of EnMS is low for many countries (including the US) and even for energy-intensive sectors. The reasons for the low implementation rate of energy management systems had been investigated by multiple researchers, but very few studies have focused on the barriers and challenges of implementing ISO 50001-based energy management systems. To contribute to this understudied area, this paper discusses the implementation and outcomes of the first Better Plants 50001 Ready Virtual In-plant Training. This paper first provides an overview of 50001 Ready and the 50001 Ready Navigator Tool. Then, it provides details on this training event and its outcomes. Finally, it discusses findings from the responses to 40 live polling questions about the status of the 25 tasks of the 50001 Ready Navigator for participating companies, key components of the participating manufacturing companies’ energy management systems, and challenges and barriers that these companies are facing. The findings suggest that although many companies understood the importance of an effective energy management system, about half of them do not understand the required resources for building energy management systems, and most of them have only just begun establishing these systems and need more assistance and resources in multiple areas. More specifically, more assistance is necessary for the following: (1) improving corporate management’s understanding of the time and resources needed to build an EnMS as well as the benefits; (2) creating linear regression models for more accurate energy performance tracking; (3) understanding energy use, collecting and analyzing energy performance data; (4) optimizing equipment operational controls, and creating action plans.

Keywords: ISO 50001; 50001 Ready; energy management system; energy efficiency; manufacturing industry; training; manufacturing workforce development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/15/5341/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/15/5341/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:15:y:2022:i:15:p:5341-:d:869603

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().