On October 25 2012, the European Commission adopted Directive 2012/27 / EU of the European Parliament and of the Council on energy efficiency (from now on – the Directive), which aims to reduce Member States’ dependence on energy imports, limit climate change and promote energy-efficient economies. The Directive sets out a series of measures to achieve the overall energy efficiency target of 20% of the European Union’s primary energy consumption by 2020 and further improvements beyond 2020. The legal norms arising from the Directive have been implemented in the Republic of Latvia’s legislation by adopting the Energy Efficiency Law on March 3, 2016 (from now on – the Law).
The Law defines a large electricity consumer as a merchant whose annual electricity consumption exceeds 500 megawatt-hours. The Law stipulates that a large electricity consumer must implement and maintain a certified energy management system standard, covering 90% of the total final energy consumption (Section 12 of the Law).
Heat production and supply company Ltd. "Salaspils Siltums", since 2010 has taken several measures to improve energy efficiency- replacement of heating mains, installation of modern and efficient equipment, reduction of significant heat losses, the introduction of remote data reading system. In order to promote the diversification of fuel production, a wood chip boiler house was built, which was supplemented with a flue gas condenser, thus increasing the overall efficiency of the wood chip boiler house.
For several years, Ltd. "Salaspils Siltums" has paid increased attention to energy management in the company, following the efficiency of production processes, resource consumption, heat losses on the heating mains, etc. Continuing the development, the company decided to certify the established energy management system according to the requirements of the LVS EN ISO 50001: 2018 standard to ensure continuous improvement of the energy management system.
The energy management policy of the heat production supply company Ltd. "Salaspils Siltums", is the basis for all stages of reconstruction and improvement in the company, including aspects of planning, implementation, operation and performance evaluation.
Ltd. “Salaspils Siltums” during its operations and improvements is primarily based on the following core values:
To achieve this, the following main steps are being taken: