CAPABILITY STATEMENT
Copyright© Energy and Technical Services Ltd. t/a CarbonEES®, April 2021
All rights reserved. This publication is free for copying, in part or whole, and for its distribution to other parties if it is acknowledged and attributed to Energy and Technical Services Ltd. t/a CarbonEES®
Table of Contents Page
1) GHG, Energy and Utility Management Software
1.1) Introduction to e-Bench®
1.2) Key Benefits of e-Bench®
1.3) e-Bench® Overview and Features
1.4) Input and Output Data Portals
1.5) Full Organisational GHG Emissions Reporting
1.6) Additional e-Bench® Software Management Services
2) Energy and Utility Procurement
2.1) Electricity Procurement
2.2) Gas Procurement
2.3) Electricity and Gas Tariff Reviews
3.0) Energy and Utility Management Services
3.1) Energy and Utility Management & Implementation Plans
4.0) e-Calc™- know the payback
4.1) Track and report on energy and environmental initiatives with confidence
4.2) Demonstrate the value sustainability delivers
4.3) Accurately report and forecast
CarbonEES® – Capability Statement
This document is intended to provide an introduction and overview of the services available from CarbonEES®. As such we hope that this Capability Statement proves easy to read and is self-explanative.
If there are requests for additional information or enquiries in how we might be able to assist with the provision of any of the services outlined within this statement, please do not hesitate to contact us
1) GHG, Energy and Utility Management Software
The importance of having an effective system for tracking, monitoring, and reporting on sustainability cannot be under-stated. It provides the metrics in assisting to determine how successful a sustainability programme might be, as well as providing the structure for Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting. The system should also provide greenhouse gas emission reporting in accordance with ISO 14064 and energy management reporting in accordance with ISO 50001. It is as essential as a financial accounting software is to a Chief Financial Officer.
1.1) Introduction to e-Bench®
e-Bench® is a very powerful, patented, carbon, energy & utility management Software as a Service system. Developed and supported by CarbonEES®, e-Bench® has an impressive range of functionality that includes targeting and monitoring, invoice reconciliation, management reporting, carbon emission tracking & reporting, continuous commissioning, interval data, benchmarking, and simulation. This combination in a single integrated software system makes e-Bench® internationally unique. To the best of our knowledge, e-Bench® is the only asset-centric energy & utility management system of its kind. e-Bench® is designed to be viewed as either a dashboard or as a full version. This flexibility means it is suitable for use both by a non-technical or technical and proficient user. In other words, by anyone within an organisation irrespective of their skill level.
1.2) Key Benefits of e-Bench®
The key benefits to an organisation from having e-Bench® as their sustainability management system is that it is a completely integrated package, with the data upload and management being part of the service offering.
This means that the organisation is free to use and act on the intelligence from e-Bench® rather than having to focus on the sourcing and upload of data into the system. Therefore, the sustainability, energy and utility management professionals get to maximise their skills where it is of most benefit to the organisation: that is, driving efficiencies from optimising the performance of the business and assets.
Subscribing to e-Bench® more than pays for itself. Real financial savings and avoided costs easily justify the benefits of having a sustainability programme. These benefits are automatically captured and can be easily relayed to stakeholders, staff, and senior management.
In addition to real financial benefits, there are further reputational benefits associated with e-Bench® as users are able to demonstrate their sustainability performance over time.
1.3) e-Bench® Overview and Features
e-Bench® is, to our best knowledge, the most feature rich energy & utility management system available internationally. The following sets out a brief overview of its key features.
Asset Centric Structure
e-Bench® is asset-centric, meaning assets are central to e-Bench®, with data linked to the asset, as opposed to the asset linked to the data. This is an important distinction from other systems, which tend to be data-centric, as this provides a framework to sub-divide the organization for analysis and comparison purposes into as many different consuming Entities as may be required. It also allows the separation of areas using common space management procedures and differentiates between landlord or common areas and tenanted or different department spaces similar to NABERS-NZ. For a building, it allows space utilization to be benchmarked. For a vehicle or asset, it allows individual performance and efficiency of that asset to be assessed and reported on.
Energy & Utility Management and Invoice Verification
e-Bench® supports all types of energy and utilities. These include the more obvious ones such as electricity, gas, coal, diesel, gasoline, water and also more obscure ones such as compressed air. e-Bench® records and monitors all types of energy and utility usage for each chosen entity. It enables invoices for these services to be checked for accuracy and compared with past records on an exceptions basis. This is achieved through an automatic email alert system to advise users of any inaccuracies in their invoices or if consumption patterns are other than what would be expected.
Furthermore, e-Bench® can process and display interval electricity data if it is available. Currently several of the gentailers are making 30-minute smart metering data available, and this can be integrated into e-Bench®.
Greenhouse Gas Emission Tracking, CSR and NGER Reports
e-Bench® provides greenhouse gas emission tracking and reporting in accordance with ISO 14064 for Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions, as well as the new ISO 14064 categories 1 to 6. e-Bench® can act as the data collection front end for the Toitū carbonzero accreditation certification.
e-Bench® can also be used to meet the Climate Leaders Coalition (CLC) reporting requirements and the NZX sustainability and non-financial reporting requirements.
In addition, there are over 200 standard management reports which can be set up to be automatically generated and emailed to the end user. This feature is very powerful in getting others involved in carbon and energy management, without it being onerous or time consuming.
1.4) Input and Output Data Portals
e-Bench® has two types of data portal available, one for inputting data, and the other for publicly displaying data.
The data input portals were created to enable scope 3 (or Categories 3-6) and contractor data input into e-Bench®; however, they are not limited to this. Non-emission data can also be input into the portals, allowing capture of sustainability and environmental metrics, and more. For instance, a client captures the diesel fuel for their shuttle bus in e-Bench® via the automated data integration process and captures data for the number of people using the shuttle bus via the data input portal.
The data output portal was developed to allow data in e-Bench® to be shared with an audience via web page graphics. Our development team can provide your IT team with code, that can be dropped into your web page, to tell your sustainability stories to an audience.
Both portal platforms are very flexible and can be adapted to many situations and types of data. The graphical data portal has the potential to be adapted to display custom graphics if so desired.
1.5) Full Organisational GHG Emissions Reporting
Clients can compile their own organisational greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions inventory (otherwise known as a carbon footprint) using e-Bench® as their primary data management and GHG emissions calculator.
However, for clients that would like additional help with preparing their inventory and would like recommendations on how to reduce their emissions we can provide an Organisational GHG Emissions Report.
This service involves the creation of Corporate GHG Emissions Report in accordance with the GHG Protocol and ISO14064 (the international standards for GHG accounting & verification). From setting organisation boundaries, to estimated tougher emissions sources such as wastewater treatment and landfill, CarbonEES® can build your inventory for you, freeing up staff hours at your organisation.
Recent GHG reporting projects include South Port NZ, Upper Hutt City Council, Institute of Environmental Science and Research and Heartland Bank.
In addition to corporate or organisation emissions reporting CarbonEES® can also help you with regional (or production) based GHG emissions inventories or product based (lifecycle) emissions assessments.
1.6) Additional e-Bench® Software Management Services
These might be:
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Establishing and tracking a GHG inventory and baseline according to ISO14064 guidelines. – already described earlier.
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Establishing the energy baseline that can be used by ISO 50001 to measure success.
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Setting targets for individual assets and buildings and then reporting on progress against these targets.
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Ensuring asset data is collected and entered into e-Bench® so we can report on energy intensity.
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Expanding the range and type of automated management reports that can be sent out to staff members monthly.
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Arranging for the upload of images of the assets so they can be attached to reports.
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Ensuring exception report errors are being acted on by the organisation.
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Expanding the range of resource flows that are being tracked to include vehicles, water, wastewater, and full Scope 1,2 and 3 materials as part of ISO 14064.
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Assisting an organisation with their Toitū carbonzero accreditation programmes.
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Training sessions on how best to understand and extract information out of e-Bench®.
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Following up with retailers to sort out billing or meter reading issues.
2.0) Energy and Utility Procurement
2.1) Electricity Procurement
CarbonEES® are one of New Zealand’s leading providers of electricity procurement services. We have been responsible for securing national electricity supply contracts spanning the period from 1999 to 2021. The organisations we have run tenders for include the following:
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Tertiary Education Electricity Buying Group.This comprises by most of the universities and polytechnics in New Zealand, with a combined load of 164 GWh.
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Local Authorities.We have run tenders for individual TLAs and collectives of TLAs.Consumption includes street-lighting, which is profiled or un-metered.Local government clients represent approximately 150 GWh.
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Healthcare. We have run tenders for the Healthcare Electricity Buying Group, comprising every DHB in New Zealand with a combined load of approximately 250 GWh.Stand-alone clients such as Bupa have also been catered for.
Coverage has ranged from large Time of Use (TOU) sites through to far greater numbers of much smaller Non-TOU or Non-Half Hourly (NHH) connections with simpler or just single tariffs. We also have experience of unmetered or “profiled” connections such as street lighting.
We are well versed in evaluating the following types of supply offers:
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Fixed Price Variable Volume (FPVV).
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Fixed Price Fixed Volume (FPFV).
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Spot Market offers – ranging from 15% to 100% exposure.
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Contract for Difference (CFD)
2.2) Gas Procurement
CarbonEES® are also one of New Zealand’s leading providers of natural gas procurement services. We have been responsible for securing gas supply contracts for a variety of sectors and clients such as:
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Healthcare Sector including all North Island District Health Boards.This includes for example Northland DHB, Auckland DHB, Hawkes Bay DHB, Tairawhiti DHB, Waikato DHB, Taranaki DHB, Counties Manukau DHB, Mid-Central, DHB, Capital & Coast DHB, etc.
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Education Sector including Massey University, Eastern Institute of Technology, Tairawhiti Polytechnic, Victoria University of Wellington, etc.
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Local Government Sector including Hutt City Council, Wellington City Council, Hastings District Council, etc.
The annual size of connections has varied from small ICPs with annual loads of only 1GJ through to large consumers of nearly 1 PJ (1,000 GJ).
2.3) Electricity and Gas Tariff Reviews
Billing and rate mistakes often go undetected and can cost organisations millions each year. Choosing the right electricity tariff (fixed vs variable charges) can lower your operating cost at a very low investment cost.
CarbonEES®’s utility bill audits, contract monitoring, and error resolution services correct problems before they become costly mistakes. In addition, our e-Bench® software system also checks for invoice errors and provides a monthly verification and reconciliation service.
We have saved existing clients substantial sums of money through our error detecting systems – in some cases more than $250,000, which has certainly well exceeded the expense of undertaking the exercise. On average, monitoring and targeting detects 3% in avoided costs per year.
Our tariff analysts also play a key role in leading the budget development process. CarbonEES®'s comprehensive energy budgeting services provide an organisation with detailed views into your upcoming expenditures, allowing them to budget for the future. Our clients rely upon our accurate forecasting and thorough, disciplined approach to mitigate future cost fluctuations.
3.0) Energy and Utility Management Services
Energy and Utility Management Services are available across a wide range of deliverables. In essence, we become your de-facto Energy Manager and are available to provide as much, or as little, input or assistance into the management of your energy use as you might feel is reasonable, or are able to budget for. Of course, energy management is the one theme of sustainable initiatives that more than pays for itself. Examples of these services include the following:
3.1) Energy and Utility Management & Implementation Plans
Many organisations have little or no systematic pathway to realising the benefits and efficiencies that can come from reducing the consumption of energy and utilities.
Having a systematic approach to the management and reduction of energy and utilities is outlined in the ISO 50001.Having it in an ISO format is one thing; having it in a practical and implementable format is another. As, after all, the efficient use of energy and utilities can only come from the practical implementation of projects, whether they be technologically driven or behaviourally driven.
In order to put together an effective plan, this requires bringing the whole organisation together, with the views of senior management representing the values and direction they want to see the organisation take. Investment criteria hurdles needs to be understood as well as where capital for investment for projects can come from. Each year will need to have their own set of projects to be implemented, who is going to champion and manage their implementation, and feedback loops clearly to be set out, so success can be assessed and reported on.
These will then need to be brought together into a single coherent document, along with other supporting strategies and policies such as waste management, procurement, maintenance strategies, asset plans, so that energy management adopts an inclusive approach.
Organisations where CarbonEES® has assisted with the development of their plans include the likes of Eastern Institute of Technology, Unitec, Wellington City Council, Massey University and Parliamentary Service.
3.2) Energy Audit Services
Undertaking analysis of energy use within the organisation and structuring an effective plan of changes and implementation projects.This may include Level One and Two Energy Audits or even extend to Investment Grade Audits, where we would be required to guarantee reductions in energy consumption and a financial return to the organisation from the implementation of a specific project.
Level One Energy Audit
Having an appreciation of how well assets and facilities might be performing is a critical stage of any energy management plan. CarbonEES® has a strong track record in undertaking Level One Energy Audits (L1EA) or as EECA title it – A Scoping Study. This will produce a snapshot of how well assets and facilities are performing compared to average and best practice guidelines, with the potential savings, in kWh and dollars, listed in the ensuing report. It is the business case behind taking further action.
We have found this stage to be critical in obtaining the buy-in of the various professionals within an organisation that may have more of a day to day or operational focus than a strategic one. For these individuals it is often the first time they can appreciate just how efficiently, or inefficiently, their portfolio of assets and facilities might be performing, and how they might compare to those in other similar organisations.
4.0) e-Calc™- know the payback
4.1) Track and report on energy and environmental initiatives with confidence
If you are involved in making decisions about energy, water, or waste efficiency in your organisation, e-Calc™ will let you know the payback you can expect and track the financial impact over time.
CarbonEES®’s environmental management and sustainability reporting software allows you to oversee and compare the return on investment from different energy and environmental management projects,
and make consistent, confident decisions. It can be integrated with CarbonEES®’s market-leading e-Bench®, or used stand-alone.
4.2) Demonstrate the value sustainability delivers
e-Calc™ makes it easy to demonstrate the impact and ongoing savings from your current programmes and make compelling business cases for new initiatives. It gives you a cost benefit analysis you can trust using a benefits protocol based on the world-leading International Performance Measurement and Verification Protocol (IPMVP) standards and verifiable logic.
The cloud-based e-Calc™ makes it easy to see the financial impact of changes in energy and environmental management. Savings or avoided costs can be reported in dollars, greenhouse gas emissions and kilowatt hours, meaning you can show others the value your energy or environmental projects deliver in their language.
4.3) Accurately report and forecast
e-Calc™ helps facilities, energy, procurement, and sustainability managers report on success with confidence and build compelling financials to influence budget decisions. It gives the knowledge to minimise costs and maximise the returns from environmental management programmes.
e-Calc™ lets you demonstrate the value and need for a corporate social responsibility programme and provides the structure for sustainability reporting, providing greenhouse gas emission reporting in accordance with ISO 14064 and energy management reporting in accordance with ISO 50001.
e-Calc™ was awarded a Commendation in the Ricoh Mega Efficiency Innovation Category at the 2016 NZI Sustainable Business Network Awards.
