Delivering a Good Energy Audit Report

Delivering a good energy audit report is not an easy task. In a very interesting discussion, I came to the conclusion that a good energy audit report is a promise that an energy auditor delivers to a client on three counts. Firstly, it requires the right identification of projects and quantification of savings. Secondly, it lists item-wise investment required and lastly, it requires a detailed plan of how the implementation will be carried out. In most energy audits, 95% of the effort goes into the first step, maximum 5% in the second step, and 0% in the third step.

In 2010, I had an interesting discussion with a customer who himself said that this energy audit would be the fourth audit and he himself told us all the measures that may come up in our energy audit report. When I asked him why he was going for an energy audit then, he replied, “The history of energy audits in our country is as old as 1973, more or less every facility has gone for energy audits multiple times. However, energy costs are rising, and government & corporate mandates have made energy audits a ritual. Facilities have no option but to look for an energy auditor who will take them to the implementation.” That was the day we decided to go for implementation, and today we don’t take up any assignment only for conducting the audit. We take all our audits to implement and so do not recommend any projects which either we can’t implement or can’t get implemented. Also, I never used my qualifications of AEA after becoming.

So, my life learning has been that a good energy audit report can only be produced with implementation in mind. What are your thoughts?