Benchmarking and Energy Management Schemes in SMEs (BESS)

BESS supports SMEs from the food and drink industry in improving their energy efficiency. Implementing an energy management system is the best way for a company to deal consequently with energy matters and therefore be able to find energy saving potentials. Especially when energy costs are increasing energy management becomes interesting for companies again. But often SMEs do not have the personnel resources and knowledge to implement energy management. BESS offers an easy to follow way with various tools like an “energy management implementation model” and an e-learning system on the BESS website. Additionally an international benchmarking scheme for specific energy consumption was established, offering the possibility to compare specific energy consumption with a large number of other companies from the same sector. The benchmarking scheme is based on the already successful Norwegian benchmarking scheme where 63% of the industrial energy consumption is represented.

Results

• At least 55 pilot companies from the food & drink industries in 11 European countries tested the energy management support and benchmarking tools including the E-learning system, and gave their feedback which enabled the BESS consortium to produce tools satisfying the actual needs of SMEs.
• A fully operational interactive web based benchmarking and e-learning system for implementation of energy management was developed, to increase the adoption of energy efficiency measures in SMEs.
• A handbook, recommendations for policymakers for follow-up activities and other dissemination activities to promote the use of the tools created increased awareness amongst SMEs and policy makers of the application of benchmarking and energy management for SMEs.
• A quantitative baseline and target setting scheme was developed for the sectors involved in the BESS pilot scheme.

Total cost: 1 335 831 EUR

Coordinator: NL Agency, Netherlands

Partners:

• NL Agency, Netherlands
• Österreichische Energieagentur, Austria
• Motiva Oy, Finland
• Centre for Renewable Energy Sources, Greece
• Sustainable Energy Ireland, Ireland
• Lithuanian Energy Institute, Lithuania
• BEKK Consulting AS, Netherlands
• New Energy Performance AS, Norway
• Jozef Stefan Institute, Slovenia
• Instituto para la Diversificación y Ahorro de la Energía, Spain
• Swedish Energy Agency, Sweden