The session titled "Culture-Building in Energy Consumption; A Glance at the Experiences of Denmark and the Netherlands" was held on the sidelines of the 15th International Environment Exhibition of Iran on March 1, 2016.
The session titled "Culture-Building in Energy Consumption; A Glance at the Experiences of Denmark and the Netherlands" was held on the sidelines of the 15th International Environment Exhibition of Iran on March 1, 2016.
The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) advisor Eric Goodberg delivered a lecture during the meeting. Goodberg talked about grounds for the creation of an energy-saving approach in industry. He stressed the mental preparation of managers and experts in the field of industry to embrace the culture of saving and optimization. The examples Goodberg referred to were experiences showing that investment in optimization of energy consumption would lead to direct saving in financial resources.
Eric Goodberg's speech at the seminar was as follows:
Denmark has been working on energy efficiency for about 30 years. The reason why the UNIDO has chosen Denmark to implement the project in Iran is that Denmark was the first country that presented energy management system. This caused us to come to Iran and provide you with our experiences in the field of energy efficiency.
As one of the progressive countries in the field of energy efficiency and optimization, Denmark has become a model for all countries. However, the reason why the country could reach this level of progress in energy efficiency was not its grave concern about environmental issues, but political events. In 1973, Saudi Arabia, the sole oil exporter to Denmark, halted its exports. At that time, Denmark was 100 percent oil-dependent, and the incident caused it to consider ending its dependency on oil and non-renewable fuels. The country, which was not experiencing good economic conditions in those years, took the most important step to achieve the goal of changing the culture of energy consumption. This caused Denmark to become one of the leading countries in energy efficiency.
Now, I want to talk about why Iran should save energy, despite having large deposits of energy, oil and gas. Why such a country should pay attention to this issue?
During our talks with company managers, all of them thought they had performed well in energy saving; but the fact is that every company, no matter how much it is successful in energy management, still has great potentials to save energy. This is the case in countries such as Denmark that have been working in this field for years, let alone Iran that has recently taken the first steps in this area.
Denmark carried out activities for energy efficiency in the building sector in 1973, including the use of insulation and double-glazed windows. Then, the country established energy management system in the industrial sector. This led to five to 23 percent of saving in electricity, 18 to 39 percent of saving in heat and fossil fuels, and 21 to 33 percent of saving in water.
According to a report published in 2015 by the Danish Energy Agency, the energy efficiency of projects that have a one-to-two-year return of profit is about 7.3 percent.
Exploiting and localizing Denmark's energy management system, Sweden introduced a project in which 117 companies participated. The results of the project showed five to 15 percent of energy saving and proved that organized energy efficiency would lead to a great success.
A major research company in the world examined the project. The results indicated that traditional energy management system can save 2.4 percent of energy, while an advanced and systematic one can save 7.2 percent.
Although the US is not considered as a leading country in energy management, it has designed a project that has brought 5.6 to 25.8 percent of energy efficiency for the companies involved. The Volvo Group is one of the companies involved in the project that has experienced 25.8 percent of efficiency. To achieve this figure, the company has fully concentrated on changing the culture of energy consumption.
Now, I repeat my question; why there should be saving in energy consumption in Iran despite the existence of plenty of cheap energy? The answer is that you should be able to compete with other countries if you want to be present in the world arena. Given the changes in policies and Iran's increasing presence in the global economy, you should think about cost reduction. Although the cost of raw materials and wages should be considered, the major part of each company's costs is related to energy. So, to stay in business, you should pay attention to competitiveness.
You may say again that saving is silly when there are so many cheap energy deposits. I'll give you an interesting example of production in Russia and Germany because the consumption pattern in Russia is very similar to that of Iran. Studies show that if, for instance, we take the cost of energy, personnel, and services in Germany as100, the figures are 46, 8, and 29 in Russia, respectively, indicating low costs in the country.
However, if we take the final price of a product in Germany as 100, it is 95 for Russia. In these circumstances, given the fact that Germany is active in the field of energy efficiency, and Russia is known as a highly bureaucratic country, most other countries prefer to buy German products.
In fact, all countries are after countries that make efforts in the field of energy efficiency, and to enter the world market and stay there, this path should be chosen.
I'll give you an example of energy efficiency in Denmark. Dairy company Arla Foods has specific rules about efficiency. For instance, vehicles carrying the products must not exceed 80 kilometers per hour. In addition to reducing the energy consumption, it decreases the vehicle's maintenance and repair cost.
In fact, the implementation of energy management system saves energy and brings non-energy benefits. In this way, paying attention only to energy saving is like looking at tip of an iceberg. This is while the measure also paves the way for improving production, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, obtaining environment-related documents, etc.
The results of researches in the world have shown that saving a unit of energy is followed by saving two and a half units of non-energy profit. A simple example in this regard is comparing halogen lamps with LED lamps. In addition to lower energy and cost savings, halogen lamps' lifespan is also much shorter.
The lamps affect the color of clothes and have high risk of catching fire. They also need more ventilation. Moreover, when you sit in a place where there is a halogen lamp, you feel something overhead and prefer to leave. Finally, if you turn all the costs of halogen lamps into money, their price will be over two and a half times higher.
During our stay in Iran, we visited five factories and ran training courses for them. In these courses, we try to teach people to practice and implement energy management system.
The difference between energy control and energy management is that in an energy control system, when costs rise, managers try to find a way to reduce them. Then, they stop doing this and as a result, the costs will rise again over time. But when there is a systematic energy management, we see an irreversible gradual cost reduction and continuous improvement. It occurs when the culture of optimization of energy consumption is implemented in all companies. The energy management system needs committed and influential managers who believe in personnel training and culture-building. In fact, we can be successful in energy management when techniques, committed managers and trained personnel are all present. Culture is what we do during the day and do not pay attention to it. If we would like to have energy management, we should change culture; to change it we need leaders. As long as we do not have good leaders, we cannot institutionalize the culture of optimal consumption.
In Denmark, companies achieved 19.2 percent of energy saving by launching a culture-building campaign, and the saving remained at 14 percent after the end of the campaign.
According to studies, Iran ranks among top countries in terms of academic knowledge, but the knowledge has not been implemented due to the lack of committed mangers. It is predicted that by taking advantage of committed mangers and implementing cultural change methods like using the energy management system, energy consumption can be optimized to a large extent through cost-free or very low-cost solutions.