The UK government's Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme (ESOS) is estimated to lead to £1.6 billion net benefits to the UK.
Established by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), ESOS is a response to the requirement for all member states of the European Union to implement article eight of the Energy Efficiency Directive.
The mandatory energy assessment and energy saving identification scheme for large companies in the UK is made up of three phases.
The first phase is to measure total energy consumption across buildings, transport and industrial processes. Energy auditing activity - for example the Carbon Trust Standard - can be used to support compliance, provided it meets the minimum requirements of ESOS.
Alternatively, an ISO50001 energy management system covering energy usage is sufficient to constitute an ESOS assessment. This first phase must be completed by December 5, 2015 for a business to be considered compliant.
The second phase of the assessment involves a company conducting an energy audit to identify cost-effective energy efficiency plans that it can feasibly implement. The deadline for compliance of phrase two is December 5, 2019.
The third phase requires relevant companies to share a report of the previous step with the Environment Agency.
European Automation warns that 65% of the UK's industrial energy consumption comes from electric motors alone, representing 20% of the UK's total energy consumption. The company argues that using a variable speed drive on a motor can severely reduce energy consumption, in some cases by as much as 60%.
It claims that if just half of Britain's electric motors were reduced in speed by ten per cent, it would have the net effect of mitigating for the carbon emissions of 9.8 million executive saloon cars every year.
