Gaining your edge
Energy Edge is an initiative of Greenhouse Canada magazine aimed at turning what is a liability for most growers – fluctuating energy costs – into a competitive advantage. With energy accounting for as much as 40 per cent of the operating costs of many greenhouse operations, small and steady improvements on this front can move the needle in a big way on the bottom line. Energy Edge will look at new technologies, innovative projects, case studies of growers finding their own Energy Edge.
You can read about it in each issue of Greenhouse Canada, but we’ve also created this dedicated microsite. Here you can find regular news items on the subject, new technology and products, video, and in-depth archives on the subject.
We’ll also produce a bi-weekly enewsletter to keep you up to speed on what we’re covering. It is free to all Greenhouse Canada digital subscribers. You can sign up for it here.
If you want to add to the conversation, please drop us a line and let us know about your project, technology, services, or concerns at energyedge@annexweb.com.
You can read about it in each issue of Greenhouse Canada, but we’ve also created this dedicated microsite. Here you can find regular news items on the subject, new technology and products, video, and in-depth archives on the subject.
We’ll also produce a bi-weekly enewsletter to keep you up to speed on what we’re covering. It is free to all Greenhouse Canada digital subscribers. You can sign up for it here.
If you want to add to the conversation, please drop us a line and let us know about your project, technology, services, or concerns at energyedge@annexweb.com.
The Journey to Energy Excellence for Greenhouses - Part 1
Friday, 11 May 2012-
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The Journey to Energy Excellence begins with a customer's desire to improve their current processes in regards to energy. As we mentioned in our first article, this program by integrating systems and processes, brings all the key stakeholders involved in a greenhouse operation together.
All key stakeholders need to work towards a common goal of obtaining significant savings and improvements to the bottom line. Today we will discuss the first step in the Journey to Energy Excellence for Greenhouses.
Step one is Information Gathering.
This really is a critical step that if overstepped or only addressed in passing, will hinder long term sustainable savings and all ability for a grower to identify what their current status is in regards to energy usage and consumption. In this stage, a grower will capture all the information they have so they can do a proper assessment of their current status. The information gathered should enable the grower to determine a baseline. In capturing the information for the baseline, questions will arise. Just a few of those questions might be along the lines of:
Who in the organization is responsible for energy?
What types of energy are you utilizing?
How are you using energy?
When are you using the various energy inputs?
Where are you using each input and what time frames are associated with that usage?
How much CO2 do you use and when?
What is your production output?
What suppliers do you use that impact your energy consumption?
What improvement have you made in the past?
Not only do you want to capture this information, you want to be able to support it with documentation. Documentation could be in the form of bills, production data, supplier manuals, feedback reports etc. all of which come together to provide a big picture, overarching view of the greenhouse operations from an energy perspective. Information gathering centralizes the information for the organization and sets the stage for step two, Data Collection, which we will discuss further next week.
Lisa Brodeur is a Quality Assurance Supervisor at 360 Energy.
