AUDITING AND REPORTING

	Reviewing and Continual Improvement
	Performance Reporting

Reviewing and Continual Improvement

The EEM Team should conduct energy/emissions audits in accordance with the schedules identified in the action plan. The audits should be designed to track the progress of implementation of the action plan, identify further opportunities for improvement and identify whether overall targets have been met.

Suggestions and opinions from staff members could also be collected as part of the review to understand where problems have been encountered and to provide an opportunity for members of staff to suggest improvements for the plan. An example audit checklist is presented in Appendix D.

Comparing Audit Findings with Reduction Targets

Audit findings should be compared with the action plan and reduction targets to track implementation and performance improvements. An audit report should be prepared to summarize achievements and identify areas for improvement. Effectiveness of each control measures should be evaluated, as far as practicable, to provide information for further improvement and establishing further reduction targets for subsequent periods. Companies should seek continual improvement.

If your operations involve combustion or heating processes, and your action plan includes measures to reduce direct emissions, continuous or regular monitoring of key air pollutants should be considered as a tool to track performance improvements.

Emissions Monitoring

Monitoring of emissions is an effective way to measure the progress of implementation of an EEM Plan, especially for heavy industries that use combustion or heating processes. Different types of air pollutants require different measurement methodologies. Typically, for large industries or industries with significant air emissions such as power plants, continuous emissions monitoring systems (CEMS) are suitable for monitor emissions. For small to medium sized industries, regular emissions monitoring for each air pollutant is recommended depending on the type of air pollutants emitted from the industry.

Continuous Emissions Monitoring System

Generally, all major combustion facilities are encouraged to use CEMS as it is a useful tool to gather process emissions data for environmental compliance demonstration, process control and optimization. However, as the investment and maintenance cost of CEMS is high, CEMS is generally more suitable for large industries (e.g. power plants) or those industries which emit high levels of air pollutants or air toxins such as incineration facilities, cement plants, etc.

CEMS generally refers to a packaged system of gas analyzers, gas sampling systems, temperature, flow and opacity monitors that are integrated with a data acquisition system to demonstrate environmental regulatory compliance of various industrial sources of air pollutants. Technical requirements and approved analytical techniques for continuous emissions monitoring systems are available on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) Website:
www.epa.gov/airmarkets/monitoring/polman/polman_oct_28_2003_vol1.pdf.

The most widely used type of continuous emissions monitoring is an extractive CEMS, in which a sample of gas is continuously drawn from the process point, filtered, transported, conditioned and presented to a gas analysis system. Gas concentrations are measured, recorded and stored as data. The data is used to generate reports, alarms or control some aspect of the industrial process.

Regular Air Emissions Monitoring

Regular air emissions monitoring is helpful to monitor the performance of the plant operation and the air control measures. Typically, different monitoring methodologies are used for monitoring different types of air pollutants. In general, air emissions monitoring follows the US EPA methodology, which is widely used as a guideline for measurement. Further information on detailed monitoring methodologies can be found at www.epa.gov/ttn/emc/promgate.html.

In Guangdong Province, stack emissions monitoring should follow measurement standards specified by the State Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) or Guangdong Environmental Protection Bureau (EPB). The list of measurement methods stipulated by SEPA or Guangdong EPB can be found on their respective Websites, i.e., www.ep.net.cn/cgi-bin/dbbz/list.cgi. The measurement method for typical air pollutants are presented in Appendix E.

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Performance Reporting

The performance audit findings should be summarized annually or bi-annually to report achievements of the energy / emissions reduction programme. Under or over achievement of targets should provide a basis for developing the subsequent year's action plan.

The summary report should include:

• Reduction targets
  
• Reduction actions
  
• A comparison of the quantity of emissions made and energy consumed and saved with the previous year's performance
  
• Details of performance against each reduction target (e.g. performance as a percentage of the target)
  
• An Action Plan for the following year
  

A template for the performance report is provided. Endorsers of the Clean Air Charter are encouraged to report their energy/emissions reduction performance, where applicable.

REPORT ON ENERGY/EMISSIONS REDUCTION PERFORMANCE (PDF format)

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