Improving the methodological toolkit for assessing energy efficiency of an industrial enterprise

Abstract

Under the new economic conditions, management of energy consumption at an industrial enterprise needs improving methods for estimating energy efficiency. The existing ones do not allow for complex assessment of the processes of dynamic interaction of an enterprise’s energy structure and market conditions, which results in poor performance of energy efficiency and energy saving at enterprises. The aim of this study is to expand the conceptual apparatus in the field of the fuel and energy balance and energy efficiency of metallurgical enterprises, and on this basis to propose a set of energy and economic indicators that can be used to form an energy-efficient strategy for an enterprise’s development. The novelty of the research can be seen in the following. First, two new concepts are introduced into the conceptual apparatus based on the analysis of the existing methodological tools for assessing energy efficiency: the "enterprise energy efficiency management pyramid" and "dynamic assessment of an enterprise’s fuel and energy balance quality". Second, a model of dynamic assessment of an enterprise’s fuel and energy balance quality is proposed and tested, based on a system of interconnected dynamic standards for the effective development of a business strategy and energy consumption economy, which makes it possible to perform quantitative assessment of the balance quality and take timely measures to neutralize negative processes of energy consumption on the basis of the principle of economic interests. The testing of the model of dynamic assessment of an enterprise’s fuel and energy balance quality has shown that the growth trends for the dynamic assessment of the fuel and energy balance quality in the Chelyabinsk region follow the same patterns as those of the companies under analysis, which allows us to offer the same set of indicators for coordinating decisions on the formation of the energy strategy for the region and enterprises on the basis of indicative planning of the energy and fuel balance at the regional level for metallurgical enterprises, and thus to provide a consistent "floating optimization" of the balance of economic entities within the region.