The workshop focussing on energy management was very timely for the reason in the same week Singapore's New Energy Conservation Act (ECA) came in force on 22 April, just the day before the workshop.
The workshop was very fortunate to have Mr. Winston Tan, Assistant Manager, Energy Efficiency & Conservation Department, National Environment Agency (NEA) presenting the introduction of the new Energy Conservation Act.
The presentation material can be downloaded

Throughout the presentation, Mr. Tan stressed the point that the prime objective of the Energy Conservation Act has been introduced to assist industries in improving the energy efficiency of their operation and strengthen their business position globally, while aiming to achieve the target of 35% improvement in energy intensity by 2030, using a baseline set in 2005. In doing so, Mr. Tan elaborated NEA’s position to promote ISO 50001 standard that would play an important role in strengthening the implementation of the act.

The contents of Mr. Tan's presentation provided a big impact and inspiration to the participants:

• The act has just come in effect the day before the workshop.
• The act puts emphasize on energy management operation.
• The act and ISO 50001 can complement each other to enhance Singapore's energy management activities.
• The role and responsibility of SCEM (Singapore Certified Energy Manager scheme) and the person responsible for energy management (PRE) defined by ISO 50001 were key discussion element throughout the workshop.
• There are attractive incentive schemes associated with the act.

Mr. Tan's presentation was referenced throughout the workshop, and all participants appreciated the clearness of the presentation and expressed they had clear understanding of the act. There were 4 participants from PUB (Public Utility Board - Singapore) representing their water reclamation plants subject to the registrable business unit were especially very keen about the elements of requirements. We were proud to report to NEA that our workshop had provided all the key practical energy management elements in such a way they can now smoothly adapt the requirements of the act to the ISO 50001 class EnMS operational aspects.
We were also grateful that NEA appointed one of their staff Milton Neo to fully participating in the workshop in evaluating the practical side of the ISO 50001 class EnMS as well as to hear the workshop participants’ view of the Act and implementation of energy management operation. Milton's active role throughout the sessions inspired the rest of participants, and made the workshop very active.

All participants agreed that the workshop built confidence level to lead their organisation business unit to ISO 50001 Class EnMS operation not only from the knowledge gained but also by the actual experience gained through the practical workshop. Following elements were the points expressed by participants that workshop taught practical aspects of EnMS operation not only limited to ISO 50001 standard aspects.

1. Appreciation for the importance of top management leadership in EnMS operation.
2. There are two distinctive aspects in terms of the top management representative to run EnMS operation and the role of the appointed certified energy managers.
3. Importance of ISO 50001 class documentation to properly run EnMS operation.
4. Energy review scope was covered for participants to engaged in carrying out energy review to identify energy efficiency opportunities both technical and operational aspects.
5. “y=ax + b” energy performance index was presented as the mean of setting baseline, target and verification of savings.
6. For EnMS, energy monitoring is a vital aspect in operation however it was stressed that not to go for perfection from the beginning to avoid disproportion of investment and indigestion from flood of data.
7. Communications both internal and external through EnMS operation is source of increase value of the company.
8. Competence and training aspects should be integrated with company’s human resource development scheme.
9. The procurement aspect is ISO 50001 strength to expand EnMS operation extended scopes: life cycle and supply chain.
10. Efficiency improvement effort should be generated largely by demand side business operators, and therefore design and procedural aspects of performance improvement shall be strongly encouraged.
11. When ISO 50001 EnMS operation is taken up, conformance to legal and other requirements shall be automatically covered.
12. Audit site assessment was exercised, and introduced scorecard system was proved an useful tool for auditor to assess impartially and with transparency.
13. ISO 50001 is not requiring certification, it is requiring "continual energy performance improvement" and including the energy monitoring procedure, organisations need to set up a solid improvement procedure for the EnMS operation.

Throughout the workshop, sessions were under the framework of “wiki50001.com” compliment of the solution software provider TEAM UK.
One of the highlights was during the audit exercise participants experience WIKI50001 to be an intelligent friend of auditees, compiling all the elements and documentation compatible to ISO 50001 guideline ensuring high level assessment result from the audit activities.
The mediawiki online based economical EnMS operating and documentation system, wiki50001 proved during the workshop exercises that it can provide following powerful functionality to make organisation's ISO 50001 scheme smooth, effective and clear cut.

1. Just by demonstrating the system, it performs as training tool for user to learn about EnMS operation.
2. Is an effective document archiving system so that EnMS operation can be run with entirely paperless environment while providing pin-point information user requires with a click or serch function.
3. Encourages handy communication internally and externally on the status of EnMS operation for company visibility.
4. Effective operational control can be implemented from individual work station.
5. "auditors" page allows auditee to handle the audit activities on pro-active approach to assist auditors for better understand the organisation's EnMS operation resulted in high rating of the assessment.

Details of the workshop contents can be assessed by downloading Singapore Workshop Report available for website members

The registered organisation has the following main obligations:

• appoint at least one Singapore Certified Energy Manager (SCEM)
• to monitor and report energy use and GHG emissions,
• to submit energy efficiency improvement plan (Energy Management System (EnMS) operation plan)

Here is the act introduction milestone:

1. Commencement of ECA and its SL(subsidiary legislation) 22 Apr 2013
2. Register with NEA (National Environment Agency) by 22 Oct 2013
3. Appoint energy manager within 30 days of being registered
4. Attain SCEM certification (for energy manager) by 1 Apr 2014
5. Submit energy use reports & energy efficiency improvement plans (voluntary) in Q3 2013
6. Submit energy use reports & energy efficiency improvement plans (mandatory) by 30 Jun 2014

There are attractive incentive programmes associated with the act:

• Grant for Energy Efficient Technologies
• Energy Efficiency Improvement Assistance Scheme (Funding for energy audit)
• Energy Efficiency National Partnership
• Singapore Certified Energy Manager (SCEM) Training Programme & Grant