Energy Audit Types and Methodology Questions and Answers

Answer: A

Grouping by investment lets management act on the housekeeping measures at once while the capital items go through the approval process. It also demonstrates that the audit has found savings requiring no money at all, which builds the credibility of the rest.

Answer: B

Turning off compressors during breaks, resetting a thermostat and repairing an air leak cost little or nothing and are usually the first thing implemented. The other three are capital measures needing appraisal and approval.

Answer: C

Engineers act on the kilowatt hours or the tonnes of steam and boards act on the rupees, and the conversion between them depends on a tariff that must be stated. A percentage without an absolute figure cannot be compared against a cost.

Answer: D

Correct answer: a valuation of the plant's assets

Asset valuation is an accounting exercise with no bearing on energy. The report should carry the baseline against which savings will be measured, the assumptions and tariff behind every figure, and a prioritised list of recommendations with their costs and savings - the three things that let the reader act on it and check it later.

Answer: A

Correct answer: the savings can otherwise be neither checked nor reproduced

A saving figure is the product of a quantity and a price, both estimated. Unless the operating hours, the load factor, the efficiency assumed and the tariff applied are stated, no reader can tell whether the number is conservative or optimistic, and no one can recompute it when the tariff changes. Stating them is what makes the report auditable rather than merely persuasive.

Answer: B

Savings are the difference between what would have been used and what was used, so the baseline must be adjusted for production, weather and any other driver that has changed. An unadjusted comparison credits the measure with changes it did not cause.

Answer: C

A plant that made a fifth less product would have used less energy whatever was done to it, and crediting that to the project is the commonest way of overstating a saving. Regressing consumption against output is the usual adjustment.

Answer: D

Correct answer: after implementation, against the adjusted baseline

Verification compares what is now consumed with what would have been consumed had nothing changed, so it necessarily follows implementation. The baseline must be *adjusted* for whatever else has moved - production volume, weather, operating hours - because otherwise a busy month would appear to cancel the saving and a quiet one would manufacture it.

Answer: A

It sets out several options, from measuring the affected equipment alone to comparing whole-site bills, and choosing among them is part of designing the verification. The other three instruments serve quite different purposes.

Answer: B

Both parties must agree in advance what would have happened without the project and how the difference will be measured, or the payment becomes a dispute. That agreement is the substance of such a contract and the reason verification protocols exist.