Developing ESCo procedures for large telecommunication facilities using novel simulation techniques

Abstract

Peak electricity demand in South Africa will exceed the available operational generation capacity in 2007. The state utility, Eskom, is addressing this challenge, inter alia, with the implementation of a national Demand-side Management (DSM) initia-tive. Studies in South Africa have shown that 20%of the total municipal energy is utilised in commer-cial buildings. Telecommunication companies own and operate a large portfolio of diverse buildings within the municipal boundaries. Energy Services Company (ESCO) analyses on these buildings showed huge savings as well as load reduction opportunities. ESCOs however face major prob-lems in evaluating DSM projects on telecommuni-cation facilities. To address these problems a new ESCO procedure for telecommunications facilities was developed and successfully implemented. It was proven that the new ESCO procedure is suc-cessful in solving the unique problems in perform-ing ESCO analyses for telecommunications facili-ties.