Lord Rupert Redesdale says the energy industry lacks standards and energy managers need to get formal qualifications.
Which is why he recently launched the Energy Managers Association to create a whole industry of energy managers at every level. He said their research showed 95% of people who call themselves energy managers have no formal qualification in energy management.
He told ELN the term “energy manager” in the industry could mean a whole range of things: “Who is an energy manager? Is it somebody who turns off a light switch or somebody buying the energy for one of the major corporations?”
But what is the point of getting qualifications now after having an energy industry for more than a century? Surely the energy managers have been doing their jobs perfectly well and learned what they need to in all these years?
Lord Redesdale says: “The rules of the game have changed. Our projection is energy will double in price in the next five years. The reality is we actually need to train people because companies are actually going to go out of business because of their energy costs. We can prove that if you take training an individual in a company can save 20% of their energy costs and that’s going to have a big impression on the bottom line.
“Energy is no longer a CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) issue it’s an FD issue. If the FD realises there’s a cost to every employee then why wouldn’t he train them?”
So training people does have some advantages. And as he’s a Lord who sits in Parliament, what are his thoughts on the Energy Bill? Is it the right policy to keep the lights on?
He says: “Yes we’ll see the Energy Bill and legislation will follow. The reality is there’s an understanding between Ofgem and the energy companies that it’s (policy) got to be around demand management. We’ve got enough energy during the night but we don’t have enough energy during peak demand. So the problem we’ll have is yes we’ll have enough energy but we will see rolling brown-outs at peak demand unless we do something.”
Lord Rupert Redesdale will be attending the Energy Live 2012 conference, just a few days prior to the Energy Bill being published – an ideal opportunity for businesses and consumers to get their voices heard!
Visit energylive2012.tv for full details of the conference.