Congratulations! You’re in charge of achieving your organization’s emissions reduction target. If you’re using this blog series as your energy initiative guidebook, then you’ve already taken action on early objectives, including:
- Ranked functional objectives so priorities are clear (lowest cost, energy resilience, or carbon reduction)
- Chose onsite energy as the main driver of emissions reductions
- Reviewed key factors related to onsite energy
At this point, you and your team are ready to start looking at your organization’s portfolio to determine understand how to and whether to optimize each site for onsite energy. However, you do not know which sites take priority or which sites should be removed from the list entirely. This is where the project gets complex.
Many companies have dozens, if not hundreds, of sites, and this can be a daunting task, especially when considering the costs associated with project analysis and development. Consequently, it is essential that the lemons are weeded out early and that enough information is collected on strong projects to obtain internal approval.
Let’s dig in.
Best Practices for Determining Onsite Energy Viability
Heuristics
Early prioritization of sites for onsite energy deployment is most easily achieved by using a heuristic analysis. This assessment is simple enough to be applied to a sizable portfolio in a short time frame but effective enough to capture risks and benefits.
The heuristics utilized will depend on your functional objective. Select an image below to gain a deeper understanding of how to analyze with heuristics.
Diving Deeper with a Site Screen
You have completed your early selection by eliminating sites that provide little to no benefit. At this stage, you are ready to run a rapid techno-economic assessment of your shortened list. This assessment provides a preliminary snapshot of your projects, allowing you to determine whether to proceed. In addition, this snapshot will enable you to socialize your results with decision makers in your company.
In order to conduct deeper analysis, you will have to collect the minimum required data for each of your sites:
- load profile of your electricity use
- your utility rates
- any existing generation onsite
With this information, you are able to run your assessment. At a minimum, the results of this should include:
- A clear economic picture of your site project, including capital expenditures, operational costs, your and levelized cost of electricity (LCOE), as well as preliminary financial metrics such as NPV, ROI, and IRR
- The potential emissions reduction
- A preliminary resource assessment of solar and wind
- The optimal size, mix, and potential dispatch of onsite energy resources
This information is used to narrow your project funnel, ensuring that value is created early on. This process supports successful investment decisions by way of clear and actionable data, while also addressing possible risks.
Assess Sites for Onsite Energy Outcomes
You’ve prioritized sites and completed an initial screen. You’ve eliminated several sites from your list, and results are still promising for the remaining sites. These projects have been approved by company leadership and are ready for the next stage: Assessment and Financing. In this stage, the goal is to increase the certainty around the results from the initial screen. By the end, you will be ready to successfully deploy your project.
One Platform to Realize Your Energy Goals
VECKTA is the only platform in the world where you can design, optimize, and deploy the optimal onsite energy system for your business.
Written By Martin Roeck