Energy Audits to Evaluate Potential Energy Savings of New Equipment in the Commercial Sector

The Global Climate Partnership Fund (GCPF) Technical Assistance Facility supports partner financial institutions in 18 countries to verify the eligibility of energy efficiency investments. Energy audits are required to evaluate and document whether an investment enables a minimum of 20% in energy or carbon emission savings, which is the eligibility requirement set by the Fund.

Econoler was commissioned to conduct a series of preliminary energy audits in the Mongolian commercial and municipal sectors. In Mongolia, many facilities located in small remote municipalities use small individual boilers combusting raw lignite coal for space and water heating purposes. These boilers, usually handmade and bought from the black market, have very low levels of efficiency and lead to very high GHG emissions and air pollution. The targeted projects indicated below mainly involved the replacement of these individual boilers by connecting facilities to the grid or to a more efficient centralized coal-powered heating system:

• Connecting two businesses and 30 households to a centralized heating system through the expansion of district heating pipes form a small municipal power plan station;
• Replacing 12 individual boilers using raw coal by one centralized boiler to heat municipal facilities (schools, hospital, kindergarten, local administration office, cultural facilities, etc.);
• Connect four retail stores to central heating so that they can get rid of inefficient individual stoves;
• Energy efficiency and renewable energy measures applicable to a tourist company using inefficient coal-fire boilers.

  The energy audits also assessed potential EE/RE measures that could accompany the changes in the heating systems. The measures assessed included reducing heat losses in targeted buildings, upgrade for production machinery, energy efficient lighting, additional energy efficient heating solutions, improving ventilation and air-conditioning, installing small PV systems, etc. The energy savings resulting from the investment had to be compared against a realistic baseline scenario developed from secondary sources. To perform the comparison, the consultants analysed the energy consumption of target facilities and identified inefficiencies, assessed variations in energy consumption compared to weather data and compared consumption to relevant benchmarks. The Econoler team developed a list of no-cost and low-cost energy measures and recommended potential measures that will have a substantial reduce GHG emission and improving air quality in target municipalities.