Data governance with Carbon Desktop: Exception alerting
Data is needed to meet regulatory standards, for effective operation of your business (giving you strategic advantage), and to achieve energy efficiency for sustainability and carbon reduction.
In order to achieve these goals, data must be available, useable, dependable and secure. More data from diverse sources means it's harder to manage, but good data governance practices achieve this.
Read the Carbon Desktop article:- Why is the governance of data important?
Data Governance series
Our useful series of articles and case studies on governance of data is designed to give you ideas and examples to better manage your data and use it effectively.
1. Start with data ownership and regular reviews
Periodic reviews of your data will allow you to easily spot obvious errors and quickly react to problems. Ideally govern this process on data completeness, outlier identification and accuracy against the complimentary data.
2. Exception alerting
Exception alerting (using tools such as Carbon Desktop's in-built real-time alerts) will automatically flag if there is a change from 'normal' in your data. Being aware of unusual changes in energy consumption will help you to quickly act on problems and identify areas for continuous improvement, avoiding losses.
Read more in the Carbon Desktop article:- Exception alerting: What it is and why you need it
Here are some examples of how exception alerting could help your business save money:
Case study 1: Operational error correction
A Carbon Desktop client uses exhaust heat from its combined heat and power (CHP) plant to feed a waste heat boiler for steam generation. This has a gas top-up feed. In one instance, the waste heat supply was stuck on bypass, causing the waste heat boiler to reject the waste heat. This led to a significant amount of extra gas to be used to provide the steam. Without monitoring CHP exhaust stack temperatures with exception alerting, this would have resulted in an additional gas spend of £1,000/ day.
Further information on CHP and the CHPQA scheme (closing in March)
Case study 2: Preventing factory stoppages
Verco assisted a client in setting up exception alerts for their air compressor systems. The site has an efficient VSD and less efficient, large fixed air compressor as a standby option. Alerts were set up to flag if the fixed unit was activated. A timely alert allowed the client to quickly address equipment failure of the VSD which had caused the fixed unit to come online and work harder to compensate for the lost capacity. This prevented potential production delays and avoided significant financial losses.
Case study 3: Equipment failure detection
Our client had implemented exception alerting on several sub-meters, including monitoring water consumption for their main manufacturing oven. A valve failure in the oven went unnoticed during routine operation. The issue became apparent over the festive period when the production line was shut down because the oven continued to fill with water throughout Christmas and New Year, despite no production activity. Carbon Desktop's exception alerting tool detected the anomaly and alerted the site team, who quickly replaced the faulty valve. This prevented unnecessary water consumption and saved £500 per day. Without a real-time alerting system, such issues may go unnoticed for extended periods, particularly during downtime or holidays, compounding the financial impact.
Read more detail about the case studies here
3. Missing readings
4. Energy breakdown (waterfall) reporting.
-Look out for further articles in this series, coming soon!-
Talk to our experts:
Contact us if you would like to speak to one of our team of energy engineers about governance of data in your business: