The reality of climate change and decarbonization has created a sense of urgency in society to boost renewable energy production. Concurrently, the industrial world is facing soaring prices in energy that is squeezing their margins. As a result, the topic of energy efficiency has been gaining a huge interest within society, more specifically within the industry.
Efficiency is not only in terms of technology, it is also in terms of management and people. We could implement the best technologies but without the right management and the right technicians, these highly efficient technologies could not deliver the highest added value.
In fields like water management, partnerships have always been a common scheme, seen both in the public and private sectors. Although partnerships could be tricky from a technical point of view, they have been formed because water is considered a resource with a high impact on both the population and the environment and thus its management is vital. Now all of sudden, energy has gained growing importance in a very short period of time, and companies, mainly industrial ones, have discovered that they are lacking most of the skills needed to adapt to this new critical situation.
Efficiency is not Only in Terms of Technology, But also in Terms of Management and People. One could Implement the Best Technologies, But Without the Right Management and Technicians, These Highly Efficient Technologies could not Deliver the Highest Added Value
Industrial companies are heavily focused on improving the skill set of their professionals in order to optimize their production processes, create the best products, and boost their sales. This is their main focus of business, but what about the rest? Qualified professionals from non-core departments are not usually their top priority. However, keeping all technicians trained and involved in the new technical solutions from beginning to end is a must if we want to achieve the most efficient processes in our business. This is where a partnership between industrial production companies and energy efficiency companies becomes a solution.
Let me show you an example:
Veolia China and Yanshan Petrochemical created a partnership, through a joint company with more than 800 employees, to manage the water cycle of their facilities. For more context, Yanshan Petrochemical is a wholly owned subsidiary of Sinopec and one of China's largest bases for the production of oil-derived products such as synthetic rubber and resin, phenol, acetone, and high-quality refined oil products.
This is one of many good examples of partnerships occurring in the resource management sector, all with an overall objective of improving efficiency. This includes more efficient processes, but also more efficient management by relying on the companies whose core business is technical management. Those companies keep technicians trained and updated with the operations of the latest technologies. One of the benefits of partnerships is their impact on keeping technicians trained and up to date, indicated by an above-average number of training hours an employee has completed per year (for example in 2020, 39 hours of training per employee was achieved). This, together with the highest standards in service quality and regulatory compliance, is the key to ensuring efficiency in all processes in the long term.
The implementation of these partnerships with energy efficiency companies, both in the public and private sectors, should be the next step in order to realize energy efficiency management. This professionalized scheme will then deliver the full potential value to each one of the different stakeholders of the projects.
