PAPER: IMPLEMENTING AN ENERGY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM (EnMS) IN REFRACORY

INDUSTRY: CHALLENGES VS. BENEFITS

Zlatko GJURCHINOVSKI, B.Sc., EE*

Ana M. LAZAREVSKA, D.Sc., Assoc. prof. **
Atanasko TUNESKI, D.Sc., Prof. **

*Vardar Dolomit, Skopje

**UniversitySs. Cyril and Methodius, Skopje, Macedonia
Faculty of Mechanical Engineering – Skopje

mail: zlatko.gjurchinoski@yahoo.com Commented [A1]: Ne gi gledam naslovite (zaglavijata na

sekciite koi rekovme deka treba da gi ima vo trudot

1. Introduction (Background) (odluchi shto kje koristis) (te molam otvori go file-ot koj od Formatted: Font: Bold

REMOO ti go isprativ za template i vidi kao e tamu – gledam deka i drugite raboti ne se primeneti

Taking into consideration that the process of implementating the concept of Energy Management
Systems (EnMS) [11referenca] is closely connected to solving conflicting issues such as reducing
the energy consumption, in parallelt with maintaining product quality and reducing impact on the
environment, it is clear that this process raises many questions for which within the implementation
timeframe adequate answers might no be at hand. Therefore, 1. The concept of Energy management
systems areis a relatively new topic in Republic of Macedonia and its surrounding. Therefore during
implementation of Energy Management System (here and after EnMS) we encounter many
questions for which there was no or at least no adequate answers. Tthe purpose of writing this paper
is to clarify and to provide possible give answers to of the following very common issuesquestions.
1. What does is EnMS Energy Management Systemrepresent, and what is are its main
features?
2. Is it necessary to invest money in order to achieve targeted energy savings?
3. What are the three main areas where savings are possiblecan be made?
4. What obstacles can occur during implementating EnMS on and how what strategies can be
applied to overcome them?
5. What is the best way to measure energy performances?
6. What kind of benefits can be expected after finishing the EnMS implementation?
Commented [A2]: Ovde treba referenca so ime I broj …. A
pozadi izvadena vo listata na referenci
Commented [A3]: Ne gi brishi ovie – samo vaka pbeelezhi gi,
kje vidime dali na kraj peshki kje se prepishat site ili kje dozvolat da
odi so endnotes … - super e vaka kako shto si ochnal I neka odi so
superscript, pa na kraj ako treba kje gi spushtime vo normal text
Inaku, pozadi dvojkata ne ja gledam …. Neshto se izmeshalo ….
Neeeee sega vidov
poradi track changes prav taka, koga kje ja izbrishesh dvojkata
skrox – kje se podredat I trojkata kje stane 2-ka
Formatted: Highlight
Commented [A4]: Pri pishuvanje na trud ne se koristi we … ilis
e roisti herein explained is elaborated is …e tc. ….
Commented [A5]: Pri pishuvanje na trud ne se koristi we … ilis
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Although the EnMS concept is a relatively new topic in the Republic of Macedonia and wider in the
Balkan region, the focus of this paper is on the challenges that were encountered during a one-year
implementation of EnMS in a well established refractory industry operating in the R. Macedonia.

2. The Concept of Energy Management System Formatted: Font: Bold

2. Energy Management System is a systematic way of managing energy in order to decrease it’s Formatted: English (United Kingdom)

consumption without affecting product quality, employees comfort or safety! [referenca] (dali e Formatted: Indent: First line: 0"

ova copy-paste citato od nekoj izvor, ako da treba da stoi vo znak navodi I sekako das e navede
izvorot) In other words overall EnMS can be represented with the so-called Commit-Plan-Do-
Check cycle presented on ImageFigure 1 [2]2 which is based on the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA)
cycle [3referenca]3. It is felt that Commit is more relevant in the context of energy management Commented [A6]: Shto tochno se misli so felt – vo paper ne
mozhe da se stavaat subjektivni ocenki, koga kje prezentirash mozhe
than Act as found in quality improvement. da si davash neshto vo razgovoren format, no vo pishan trud, ne se
pishuva taka.
Formatted: Font: Bold
Formatted: Justified, Indent: First line: 0", Don't keep with
next

Commit Plan

Check Do

Image 1: Commit-Plan-Do-Check Cycle – (Source: [4referenca ]4 a ovoj del odi na kraj vo listata na referenci Practical guide
for Implementing Energy Managenet Systems - Copyright © United Nations Industrial Development Organization 2013

The EnSM System implementation starts with the step Commitment. It is expected that Aall Formatted: Indent: First line: 0"

Eemployees part of the entity subject to the EnMS implementation should be committed to the
necessary and foreseen changes, However, butthe commitment of the companys Top Management
Commitment is crucial. Top Management commitment is expressed shown through signing the
company Energy Policy, allocating necessary material and human resources, assigning roles and
responsibilities, appointing a management representative, and delivering making decisions for
further actions.

The Nnext step is identifying and planning the changes. In Throughout this step the subject
company should prepare the plan of changes that need to be done performed in order to achieve the
targeted savings. There are three main areas where changes can be madeare possible and welcome:
- Equipment - When we speakconsidering about energy savings first thing that will comes Formatted: Font: Bold

toon our mind is changing equipment, but the weakness of in this area is that new equipment Formatted: Indent: Left: 0.24"

needs requires investment, while reparation and maintenance is associated with operational
costs.
- Processes – from an energy saving point of view, this area can hides certainsome low or Formatted: Font: Bold

even no cost measures for energy saving but this areawhat is more important it necessarily
requires advanced knowledge of the processes.
- People – most of the no or low cost measures are in the area of people’s behaviour. Formatted: Font: Bold

However, , but this fact is very often neglected

Formatted: Indent: First line: 0"

After the changes are identified and correspondingly planned they need to be implemented.
Depending on their complexity, some measures can be implemented within timeframes spanning
from one hour (some training of employees or adjustments of critical operational parameters) up to
a whole year (e.g. for implementing changes of related to operating new equipment in complete
production lines).

WhenAfter the changes are done performed, next step is to we need to check the results i.e.
to measure the achieved savings in order to compare them with the identified and set targets. It is
crucial for the company to have a set of already prepared acceptable energy performance indicators
in order to be sure that planned targets are met or not.
Proper implementation of the EnMS requires Thispermanent advances and continuous improvement Formatted: Indent: First line: 0"

circle should run permanently for the whole system but also as well for every single related
decision, in order to achieve sustainable EnMS that enabling permanently reduce energy
consumption recuction.

3. Case study and Results of implementing the EnMS in a refractory industry Formatted: Font: Bold

3. Most of the examples presented here are experiences gained during implementation of EnMS in Formatted: Font: Bold

line with ISO 50001 in refractory company Vardar Dolomit DOOEL Skopje. Scope of the
implementation was whole facility for producing dolomite based refractories located in Gostivar,
Republic of Macedonia. Implementation of EnMS in Vardar Dolomit and in 10 other pilot
companies in Republic of Macedonia, has been part of the project “Catalyzing market
transformation for industrial energy efficiency and accelerate investments in best available
practices and technologies in the Republic of Macedonia”[5 which was implemented by UNIDO
and the country office of the Regional Environmental Center (REC) in Macedonia and mainly
funded by the Global Environmental Facility (GEF).

Implementation of EnMS touches different parts and processes within the company that are directly
or indirectly connected with energy, so they need to be reviewed, adopted or changed in more
energy efficient manner. Although the examples that will be presented are related to specific
industrial plant, most attention in this paper is devoted to general things of EnMS Implementation
like obstacles (barriers) and finding solutions for overcoming that barriers as well as potential
benefits that can be expected from implementing EnMS.

Herein presentedWe will divide obstacles and solutions are divided in three categories according to
the period of their appearance:
- Barriers before implementing of EnMS
- Barriers during implementation of EnMS and
- Barriers while maintaining EnMS

Most common obstacles before implementing EnMS are: Formatted: Indent: Left: 0"

- It is difficult to convince companies that it is necessary to reconsider the way they use
energy and that most likely it can be improved.
- Тhe premise that the implementation of a system for managing energy is a decision that
requires significant financial resources
- Fear of change

Convincing companies to reconsider the way of their energy usage can be a very big barrier in the Formatted: Indent: First line: 0"

beginning. Companies, especially big ones, tend to communicate with public about their success,
social responsibility, new products, advantages over competition etc. but they avoid to speak about
their imperfections, weaknesses or even mistakes. А large majority of managers want to boast that
their companies operate to the most effective way and that there is not much to do in this area.
Honestly We must to be honest and to admit that in case of Vardar Dolomit this barrier was not
casewe don’t have this barrier because general manager was really open for cooperation and
dedicated to continuous improvement of production efficiency in any sense, but in other companies
from this project there were we have some examples where managers were not so committed to
EnMS from the very beginning.
The best way for overcoming to overcome this barrier is presenting positive examples of EnMS
implementation worldwide. There are examples of implementation of EnMS in very big and well
known international companies and /or corporations and some of their achieved results are really
amazing (there are some good examples in UNIDO Guide mentioned before [ 6]some of them have
saved more than 10% of their annual energy consumption). Since within this project EnMS was
already implemented in more than 10 companies in Republic of Macedonia, there are we have also
available positive experiences on national level.

Another barrier from the very beginning is premise that the implementation of EnMS will
necessarily require investing a considerable amount of resources.
Solution to this barrier is brief explanation that EnMS itself does not require mandatory investment
in expensive projects, to be more precise, it does not require mandatory investment at all. Only
mandatory thing in EnMS is showing improvement of energy performances i.e. reducing energy
consumption.
First implementation costs are costs for consultants that will help company during implementation
and these costs are negligible in terms of financial benefits that can be achieved even in the first
year of implementation. Within implementation of the project companies get covered consultancy
costs and country get about 20 certified national consultants were trained and certified for
implementing EnMS’s, which will result with acceptable prices for such consulting services in the
future.
Regarding investments it’s very important to point out that during implementation companies build
a list of opportunities and rang them by the level of investment like no cost, low cost, medium cost
or high cost opportunities. Company by itself decide which of this opportunities will be
implemented and when, but it is highly recommended to start investing in more serious projects
only after all now cost and low cost measures are already used.

Last but not least barrier before implementation is fear of Change. This problem is rare among
managers because these are people who are not afraid of change and decision making but between
middle managers and employees often there is resistance of implementing new things precisely
because of the fear of change.
In every company, on every hierarchical level there are employees who are not afraid to change the
way of their day to day work. In fact, these employees are usually the most valuable employees for
the company because they hide potential in them, this is ideal opportunity to identify them and
motivate them by giving a chance to carry the implementation of EnMS.

Most common obstacles during EnMS implementation are: Formatted: Indent: Left: 0"

- Lack of awareness about importance of EnMS

- Employees avoid being involved in the implementation of EnMS
- Lack of time and money

Lack of awareness can vary depending on country culture, location of company within country and Formatted: Indent: First line: 0"

also on age, level of education and type of contract of employees, but m rising of this awareness to
certain level is always necessary.
There are many ways to build up awareness about importance of EnMS. For this purpose depending
on company size and complexity, we can be used trainings, presentations, brochures, internal emails
and so on. It is not so important what kind of communication we will be used, what is crucial is that
implementation barriers, ideas and especially successes must be communicated and understood by
all stuff and contracted employees.

There are situations when some of the employees, from their own reasons, avoid being involved in Formatted: Indent: First line: 0"

the process of implementation of EnMS. It can be because they are too busy, because they think that
they are not payed enough to fulfil new obligations, or simply because they are afraid of new things.
For overcoming this barrier cooperation of top management is necessary. If stuff involved in
implementation of EnMS, are really too busy top management can redeploy some of their duties to
others or can raise their salary or bonuses. It is important for energy management point of view,
energy team to be composed of people who have excellent knowledge in their field of work and
who are motivated, conscious and eager to achieve improved energy performance and reduce
energy consumption.

In many cases barrier can be lack of time and lack of money for implementation of energy
conservation opportunities from adopted plan.
As wase mentioned before, company builds its own plan for implementing energy conservation
measures and targeted savings. This plan should be prepared with all necessary calculations for
needs of investments, time schedule for implementation and expected benefits, and also approved
by top management. If top management approve this plan and allocate all planed resources, than
lack of time and money can be result probably of poor plan or imprecise calculations, so solution is
to put more effort into the planning stage to avoid problems in the implementation.

After successful implementation, EnMS should be properly maintained in order to be sustainable.

And again there are some barriers to overcome:
- Some of the employees are not competent enough to meet the new obligations arising
from EnMS
- Changing people behaviour is really hard and slow process
- Habit of using specific energy consumption as an indicator of energy performance
measurementof the company[7
Formatted: Indent: Left: 0"

After EnMS is implemented, regarding of type of the company, in order to reduce energy Formatted: Indent: First line: 0"

consumption, regular monitoring of significant energy users (SEU’s) is needed. It may therefore be
a need for skills that employees do not have. For example in Vardar Dolomit, in order to their
operation control plan, following skills are necessary: Optimization of combustion process with
portable gas analyser, insulation checking with thermal camera, electrical cables insulation testing
etc.
For this or other specific skills usually companies do not have enough competent employees. For
this purpose trainings of stuff are necessary. If company has somebody who already has that kind of
skill they can use him to make internal training for his colleagues, otherwise they have to find
outsource trainer.
For using the energy in the most efficient way there is need not only to implement appropriate
energy efficiency measures but also to change stuff behaviour, in order to make them to reflect, to
behave and act in energy efficient manner.
Solution for this barrier is again training and communication, but human beings are naturally inert
and slowly get used to new things so in order to succeed in this, it is necessary to have a strong
commitment, patience, time and certainly management support.

Many hours of work are spend for building mathematical models for creatingalculating energy
consumption and energy performance indicatorss. This is clearly explained to all energy team
members and adopted as only energy performance indicator within EnMS, but when they write
production reports they always use specific energy consumption as measure of energy performance.
For overcoming this barrier it is necessary to repeat over and over again how energy performances
are measured and always to give examples how specific energy consumption can lead to wrong
conclusions regarding energy efficiency.
Formatted: Indent: Left: 0"

4.Results and Discussions Formatted: Font: Bold

Herein are presentedWe present the most common obstacles (barriers) and proposals for solutions Formatted: Indent: First line: 0"

for overcoming these barriers. Best measure of success for overcoming obstacles is actually the
degree of realisation of planned objectives and targets. In other words implementation of EnMS is
successful as much as achieved benefits for the company are more significant. Achieved benefits
can be deivided in two categories, energy and non-energy benefits.
As energy benefit for 2016 of the first year of implementation in Vardar Dolomit we can be pointed
out only savings in electricity. In this energy source saving of 50MWh where achieved, which is
1,5% of total electricity usage. The percentage is not very big but we are proudit is important to
stress out that because all this savings where achieved only with low or no cost measures and with
raising awareness of employees. This year expectations arewe believe that trend of savings in
electricity consumption will be even better and also we believe that positive experiences from
electricity consumption will be reflected in the consumption of fuel oil.
In the category of non-energy benefits there iswe have much more to show, but we will focus will
be given only on the most important and the most valuable achievements that follow:
- Raising energy awareness - Although there still big potential in raising energy
awareness, we are very happy that there is significant improvement of awareness is
already being achieved especially within middle and top management.
- Fulfilling legal requirements regarded to energy – Thanks to the EnMS all legal and
other requirements related to energy are monitored and reviewed at regular base due to
theso risk of not fulfilling them is close to zero.
- System approach to energy savings projects – In the past calculation of energy savings
investments were done only by taking into account only investment price from one side
and direct savings from the other side. After implementation of EnMS we have more
sophisticated system approach which means that we consider investment and life cycle
costing (LCC) and we also consider direct savings as well as potential impact of new to
nearby equipment.
- Identified energy allocation per unit of product - With the help of advanced
mathematical models we have built, we can calculate the energy required to produce a
unit of product depending on volume of production and in terms of all relevant external
factors such as ambient temperature, humidity and so on.
 - Improved operational control – There is operation control procedure for every
significant energy user that results with reduced risk of energy loss, and also this is
another potential for further no cost savings.
- Improved reliability – due to better understanding of overall production process
reliability of the company is increased.
- Transfer from corrective to preventive maintenance – with improved maintenance
procedure maintenance stuff is able to predict further problems in equipment and to
react preventively which result with reduced downtime and defects.
- Higher priority to Critical Operational Parameters – Giving higher priority to critical
operational parameters is not only no cost opportunity for savings but is also perfect tool
for improving safety and reducing the risk of accidents. There is case in Vardar Dolomit
when trough regular monitoring of critical operational parameters was recognised
malfunction valve for fresh air in tempering kiln and thus in time removed the danger of
occurrence of fire.
- Better trained and more competent employees – with every further training the stuff gets
not only more skills but also more confidence in themselves.
- Improving company sustainability and productivity - In parallel with the progress of the
energy management system, there is also progress in productivity and sustainability of
the company
- Increased stuff satisfaction - Strict control of the parameters of business premises such
as brightness and temperature of the heating / cooling though it can bring some energy
savings contribute to employee satisfaction because they permanently have constant
quality working conditions
- Better company reputation – taking into consideration the fact that EnMS necessarily
require improving the energy performance of the company, which shows that the
company cares about preserving the environment and sustainable development it
undoubtedly increase its reputation.
5. Conclusions Formatted: Font: Bold

As a conclusion should be stressed out we can say that our experience of implementing EnMS in Formatted: Indent: First line: 0"

Vardar Dolomit is completely positive. Almostthat although EnMS implementation was done
almost without investment we realize implementation of EnMS and we get, positive feedback was
gotten. It comes out that as usual non-energy benefits are even bigger from planned energy benefits.
This is very common situation. AnotherWhat is more important thing is that we already have list of
energy conservation opportunities has been created. This ECO list which can be treated as long term
investment plan for further increasing of energy efficiency. As a culmination of successful
implementation of EnMS for this year is planned certification we plan to certify it in line with ISO
50001.
6. Abbreviations: Formatted: Font: Bold

- EnMS – Energy Management System

- PDCA Cycle – Plan Do Check Act Cycle
- CPDC – Commit Plan Do Check
- UNIDO – United Nations Industrial Development Organization
- REC - Regional Environmental Center
- GEF – Global Environment Facility
- LCC – Life Cycle Costing
- SEU – Significant Energy Usage
 - ECO – Energy Conservation Opportunity
Formatted: Normal, No bullets or numbering

7. Acknowledgements Formatted: Font: Bold

The GEF-UNIDO-REC Project is funded by GEF, implemented by UNIDO and jointly executed
with the REC Country Office Macedonia. The on-going project activities are conducted in
collaboration with the Macedonian Ministry of Environment and Physical Planning, the Ministry of
Economy, the Energy Agency and the Macedonian Bank for Development Promotion.
The authors of this work extend their thankfulness to Vardar Dolomit, Gostivar, for the unlimited
support and availability of the data presented herein.
Formatted: Font: Bold

87. RefferencesEFFERENCES: Formatted: Font: Bold

- ISO 50001: Energy management systems – A practical guide for SMEs - ISO copyright Formatted: Normal, No bullets or numbering

office CP 401 • CH -1214 Vernier, Geneva

- Practical Guide for Implementing an Energy Management System - UNITED NATIONS Formatted: Normal, No bullets or numbering, Adjust space
between Latin and Asian text, Adjust space between Asian
INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT ORGANIZATION - Vienna, 2013 text and numbers
- Implementation of Energy Management System in Vardar Dolomit DOOEL - Final Report Formatted: Normal, No bullets or numbering
- CHALENGES and EXPERIENCESS during IMPLEMENTATION of EnMS in Refractory Industry
- Experience of VARDAR DOLOMIT

Vidi go formatot za citiranje na referencite vo trudot od remoo – ispechati go i sledi gi pravilata za Formatted: Highlight

vidovite reference – dali e paper, kniga, report ili .... sl.

1Liam McLaughlin L., “ISO 50001: Energy management systems – A practical guide for SMEs”, ISO copyright office,
GenewaGeneva, Switzerland, 2015 (ak oima i URL kopiraj ja tuka) Formatted: English (United Kingdom)

Formatted: English (United Kingdom)

3Sopakayoung N,Soralump C,Vongthanasunthorn N,Damrongsri M, “Implementation of PDCA Cycle on Formatted: Font: (Default) Times New Roman, 10 pt
Environmental Management Tools”, 2009 (https://books.google.mk/books?id=EU6DoAEACAAJ)
4“Practical Guide for Implementing an Energy Management System” - UNITED NATIONS INDUSTRIAL Formatted: Plain Text
DEVELOPMENT ORGANIZATION - Vienna, Austria, 2013 Formatted: Font: (Default) Times New Roman, 10 pt, Not
5 Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, in “A low-carbon path to enhanced industrial competitiveness”, UNIDO Superscript/ Subscript
Energy Programe – Industrial Energy Efficiency Unit, pp 28 Formatted: Font: (Default) Times New Roman, 10 pt
6Case studies and examples, in “Practical Guide for Implementing an Energy Management System” - UNITED
Formatted: English (United Kingdom)
NATIONS INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT ORGANIZATION - Vienna, Austria, 2013, pp 7-8
7Workshop Policy Maker Meets the Engineer Summary Report, UNECE Group of Experts on Energy Efficiency, Formatted: Normal, Don't adjust space between Latin and
Geneva, Switzerland, 2017, Asian text, Don't adjust space between Asian text and
numbers
http://www.unece.org/fileadmin/DAM/energy/se/pdfs/geee/Workshop_January_2017/Policy_Maker_Meets_the_Engine
er_Summary_Final1.pdf Formatted: Font: (Default) Times New Roman, 10 pt
Formatted: Font: (Default) Times New Roman, 10 pt
Formatted: English (United Kingdom)
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