INSIGHT INTO ENERGY CONSUMPTION SUPPORTS THE UN SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS

A giant leap was taken for global sustainable development when the world heads of state and government adopted the 17 Sustainable Development Goals at the UN Summit in 2015. This marked an unprecedented ambitious development agenda which included the target of doubling the global rate of improvement in energy efficiency by 2030. It also included the target of increasing substantially the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix, and that is an area where KMD contributes with its IT solutions.

'We are not directly involved in the production of renewable energy sources, but we supply the systems used by the Danish Energy Agency to calculate and pay renewable energy production – known as the PSO funds. The funds support installation and operation of wind turbines, PV systems and biogas.'

- Carl-Erik Vestager, Vice President of KMD Energy and Utility

Organizations to comply with green requirements

Both public and private organizations are increasingly faced with green requirements to run their business in a more sustainable manner, and with goal number 7 about more sustainable energy, the Unsustainable Development Goals help support that development. For KMD, it is particularly about supplying IT solutions that make it easy and efficient to calculate consumption and manage energy and resource consumption. That makes it easier for the organizations to comply with the green requirement.

KMD does not produce wind turbines, but IT software which helps the state, regions, municipalities and private businesses gain an overview of their energy consumption. This way they can closely monitor their energy consumption and create a general energy awareness which creates a basis for better energy optimization,' says Carl-Erik Vesterager and continues:

'We do not tell people what they need to do to lower their consumption, but we build data and create the overview needed for them to make the right, sustainable decisions. Specifically, we can show how buildings, machines, etc. perform in terms of energy, also known as benchmarking, and where, when and how energy is wasted. This could, for example, be a ventilation system, the operating hours of which do not match the usage hours,' he explains.

Insight means optimized energy consumption

According to Carl-Erik Vesterager, the increased insight into the energy consumption of the organization is like a three-stage rocket: When the organization has the right tools for data collection and analysis, it is possible to document energy consumption in detail. The detailed documentation increases understanding – and with increased understanding, it also becomes more natural to work with proactive measures to optimize energy consumption as an integral part of the other improvement measures and business decisions. It can be used in the green data work as tools for impact measurement and realization of efficiency gains.

'KMD handles energy data for more than two million meters in Denmark, and we have generated energy savings for our customers through information about consumption and collaboration with energy consultants. So, we help support the green transition and the target to double the global rate of improvement in energy efficiency in various ways,' Carl-Erik Vesterager finishes.