Working with environmental and energy consultancies

In the past few months, energy saving has been a major driver behind Siveco’s projects in both the Facility Management and industrial segments of the market. At the same time, environmental compliance has become a growing concern for technical managers. The impact of maintenance on those two disciplines is now widely recognized.

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As part of its Value Added Partner Program, Siveco China has started to work with energy and environment specialists in order to fulfill our customers’ needs. The partnerships can take multiple forms, Siveco acting either as a prime contractor (subcontracting specialist jobs to the partner) or as a subcontractor (especially when partner manages a large scope e.g. a retrofit project or ESCO contract). Sometimes the relationship is simply that of mutual introduction, the end customer contracting Siveco or the partner directly.

An example of such partners is the Shanghai Pacific Energy Center (SPEC) to which Siveco subcontracts specific energy expertise services on facility management projects (commercial and hotel properties).

The Shanghai Pacific Energy Center (SPEC) is a high-tech environmental consulting firm, founded in 2001 by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory USA and Tongji University China. Further support has been provided by government agencies, such as the Shanghai Development and Reform Committee, the Shanghai Economic and Trade Committee, the Shanghai Construction and Transportation Technical etc.

SPEC is a member of both the US Green Building Council (USGBC) and the Shanghai Green Building Council (SGBC). SPEC provides a series of technical services in green building and energy efficiency to support the development of buildings that are highly energy efficient, comfortable, healthy, eco-friendly at low maintenance costs.

SPEC has been accredited in 2009 by the Government as an Energy Saving Company (ESCo) allowing SPEC to legally provide the full range of engineering retrofit services for existing buildings through Energy Management Contract (EMC). Through EMC, energy saving are guaranteed and financial or technological risks will be endorsed by SPEC.

SPEC’s team includes numbers of high experienced Professors and Engineers with international experience, specialized in HVAC, lighting for both new and retrofit building projects. Totally, SPEC’s cumulated experience in Green Building is over 200 man years.

In the facility management market, projects usually start with an audit. Such audits are sometimes motivated by purely technical needs (aging systems with increasing impact on the business operation), by energy saving targets (more and more often the case), but also by safety concerns (especially with the government push for better elevator/escalator safety) or environmental compliance issues.

When talking directly to Siveco, the customer has often realized the strong link between these concerns and the technical maintenance of building systems (HVAC, elevators, electrical systems, etc.). When talking to an energy consultancy, the end-customer may not be aware of the link, but specialized consulting firms have learnt that “green” design was not the answer to every problem (in fact as much as 30% of green certified buildings perform below average in terms of energy consumption – due to poor maintenance). A joint audit is the perfect way to identify the impact of possible action plans, including that of an improved maintenance practice.

The typical joint energy and maintenance audit will comprise the following steps:

•   Identification of the main contributors to the building’s energy consumption
•   Focus on the main contributors for in-depth analysis
•   Review of the ongoing actions

•   Based on a guided tour of the facilities (heating, ventilation, cooling systems, lighting systems and controls)
•   Closer look on the main equipments’ condition
•   Collect capacity and power rating of equipments
•   Collect records of operations in last years

•   Identification of the stakes and perspectives: impact of maintenance, objectives and key issues to be addressed by the maintenance organization
•   Review of the maintenance strategy
•   Review of the current organization, including the supporting systems (paper, computerized and process-based)

This first steps will consist in interviews of key personnel and analysis of technical-financial data available onsite by Siveco or partner’s experts.

A workshop is then conducted with the technical team and relevant managers to present and discuss findings and recommendations, in the form of action items, prioritized based on expected ROI (which will be estimated).

Depending on the conclusions, the audit may then be followed by an improvement project, which may be run in-house by the client, managed by Siveco and/or partner or by any third-party.

Joining forces with partners has proven to be a very effective way to cover all customer needs. We welcome all enquiries from potential partners that may be consultancies, ESCOs, engineering firms and other players of the energy & environment market.

For more on Siveco’s Value Added Partner Program, see:

https://newsletter.bluebeecloud.com/en/siveco-partner/siveco_partner-how_to_do_business_with_siveco_join_our_value_added_partner_program/

Tags： VAPP、improvement、energy、green、audit、SPEC、FM、outsourcing