Energy benchmarking for industry

The Canadian Industry Partnership for Energy Conservation (CIPEC) and its partners have developed two benchmarking programs for Canada's industrial sectors.

Benchmarking enables organizations to analyze their energy use, and compare their energy use, greenhouse gas emissions and best practices with other companies.

Energy performance benchmarking

Energy performance benchmarking analyzes energy use per unit of physical production, otherwise known as energy intensity.

Typically, the steps involved in energy performance benchmarking are as follows:

1. Determine your plant's energy intensity by fuel type. Our energy use calculator will make the job easier.
2. Compare your energy intensity with that of your industrial sector by referring to the appropriate benchmarking guide. You may also want to refer to the sector energy data available through the Canadian Energy and Emissions Data Centre (CEEDC), at Simon Fraser University and supported by Natural Resources Canada.
3. Access technical information that will help you improve your facility's energy performance.
4. Select your CIPEC sector task force to get more information specific to your sector.

Energy best practices benchmarking

Best practices benchmarking compares operations and systems within your facility to best-in-class operations. Generally, the steps involved in energy best practices benchmarking include the following:

1. Identify areas for improvement.
2. Research and identify the key factors and variables you will use to measure areas for improvement.
3. Determine if the data is already available or how you will get it.
4. Analyze the data and identify the best practice/performance by selecting the best-in-class category (e.g., companies that perform each function at the lowest cost with the highest energy efficiency).
5. Determine the conditions your organization needs to achieve the best practices – and specify the actions that you must take to achieve the desired results.
6. Implement your action plan:
   • Set specific improvement targets and deadlines.
   • Develop a continuous process to monitor, review and update the data and analyze it over time. This will give you a basis for monitoring, revising and recalibrating the measurements for future benchmarking studies.