Corporate energy audit: Dametis supports you!
Increasing energy performance in industry and reducing carbon footprint requires a global view of consumption. A corporate energy audit provides information on your consumption and helps you identify priority areas for savings.
Corporate energy audit: what obligations, what benefits?
The industrial energy audit, carried out by an energy expert, provides a precise assessment of the operation of equipment and processes at an industrial site.
Following this audit, technical and functional optimization actions are recommended, with the aim of increasing and sustaining the site’s energy performance.
An obligation to carry out energy audits applies to certain companies, particularly industries which represent a fairly energy-intensive sector.
A closer look at this obligation
Sites with an annual energy consumption greater than 2.75 GWh are required to carry out a corporate energy audit before October 11, 2026. This audit must then be renewed every 4 years. In the event of non-compliance, an administrative fine of up to 2% of turnover (excl. tax) may be imposed.
An exemption exists.
Sites certified ISO 50001 are exempt from this obligation. Indeed, the implementation of a certified energy management system meets regulatory requirements for energy diagnostics and the search for energy efficiency actions.
Certification therefore exempts from corporate energy audits. However, for many manufacturers, it is also a regulatory obligation to be respected. Indeed, sites or groups whose annual energy consumption exceeds 23.6 GWh are concerned.
Beyond the regulatory aspect, ISO 50001 should be seen as a performance lever. Above all, it constitutes a rigorous methodology for managing consumption, uniting teams around energy, and increasing performance in a sustainable way.
To increase performance, the corporate energy audit constitutes, as previously mentioned, an essential first step in controlling energy consumption. Carried out by a qualified auditor, this analysis first makes it possible to establish a breakdown of energy consumption by Energy Uses (EU) and to define those that are significant (SEUs).
The audit then provides a prioritized list of all Energy Performance Improvement Actions (EPIAs). In addition to this list, the auditor must also provide an estimate of energy gains, financial savings, and return on investment for each recommended action.
Finally, the auditor determines the measurement equipment to be put in place to ensure optimal monitoring of SEUs by defining EnPIs (Energy Performance Indicators) or KPIs to facilitate the management and optimization of consumption.
Nicolas Julien
Energy Efficiency Engineer, Dametis
“The energy audit is a great gateway to energy management and the resulting gains. It allows you to benefit from the expertise of an energy specialist directly on-site to establish an initial action plan with significant potential savings, some of which require little or no investment.
For sites that do not yet have an energy management system, the opportunities for gains are generally numerous, quick to identify, and simple to implement. Conversely, for more mature sites that have already carried out improvement actions, the corporate energy audit allows for going even further in the process by identifying more complex actions, sometimes with a significant investment but a fast ROI.
How does a mandatory corporate energy audit work with Dametis?
After contacting you beforehand, our expert visits your site to carry out a regulatory energy audit. During this study, the following will be analyzed in particular:
- The overall operation of your site according to the different production phases
- The operation of utilities and their equipment (compressed air, refrigeration, steam, hot water, wastewater treatment plant, etc.)
Overall, the on-site expert finely analyzes all the different systems, from production to utilities, notably by taking various spot measurements.
Beyond this analysis, during the corporate energy audit, our experts meet with various stakeholders: maintenance, quality, production, energy, management, new works, etc. The objective here is to understand the different uses, challenges, and risks faced by the industrial site.
Following this analysis, the auditor synthesizes all the data and information collected. They then present the manufacturer with a report including a detailed assessment as well as optimization actions. Following this presentation, recommendations can be adjusted with the site teams to better meet their technical, economic, and environmental challenges. The idea is to propose a tailor-made and realistic action plan.
“The quality of a corporate energy audit depends above all on the auditor’s competence and the quality of their analysis. A rigorous audit is not limited to proposing generic actions. Sometimes, auditors recommend controlling the manufacturer’s electric motors via a variable speed drive, even though the process requires no speed variation and this risks leading to higher energy consumption. As an auditor today, we must propose solutions adapted to the site on technical, economic, and organizational levels to enable it to reduce its energy bill.
However, the quality of an audit also depends on the company being audited. Although we are autonomous, an audit cannot be conducted optimally without the possibility of meeting certain people on-site to discuss their daily routines and collect various information such as data. The relevance of the audit report is closely linked to the quality of the on-site exchanges, the available data, and the measurements carried out on-site. And contrary to what many manufacturers think, the purpose of a corporate energy audit is not to penalize the manufacturer or force them to implement actions; exchanges must therefore be based on sincerity.”
Nicolas Julien, Energy Efficiency Engineer, Dametis
Dametis is qualified with OPQIBI 1717 (Energy audit in industry) and meets the obligations for corporate energy audits. Our audits are therefore carried out according to ISO 16247-1 and ISO 16247-3 standards, with the OPQIBI qualification displayed in the report!
