Energy Efficiency in Electrical Installations

Design hierarchy

Ensuring that an installation is safe enough to allow satisfactory operations and has sufficient capacity for existing needs has typically been enough for most installations. Some installations, with safety critical operations, may also have considered resilience to avoid single points of failure and provide system continuity. This means that now the traditional model of an electrical installation design hierarchy would have been:

Energy efficiency should be added to the the hierarchy of design, The traditional design hierarchy should change to this:

There should be change of emphasis to incorporate energy efficiency into electrical installation designs as a prerequisite rather than just as an aspiration. An energy efficient electrical installation has many potential benefits:

1. less impact on the environment generally;
2. reduces energy losses and hence lowers energy costs;
3. uses energy when it is required and potentially at a lower (off-peak) tariff;
4. less reactive maintenance due to the adverse effects of heat loss; and
5. optimises the electrical system performance throughout its life cycle.