GUIDELINES FOR THE CALCULATION OF SPECIFIC ENERGY CONSUMPTION (SEC) AS ENERGY PERFORMANCE INDICATOR IN TRANSPORTATION OPERATIONS

Abstract

Transportation is the economic sector that consumes more than one third of Thailand’s energy consumption annually, and fuel cost typically dominates the largest portion of total transportation operation expenses. Accordingly, transportation sector becomes the focus for Thai government to achieve better energy performance according to the nation’s 20-Years Energy Conservation Plan. Since energy management strategy is a key factor to promote energy efficiency in transportation processes, energy saving target and performance indicator are needed to be defined and monitored properly using Specific Energy Consumption (SEC). Since SEC indicates the amount of energy usage per unit of activity (i.e. product or service), it can used to explain the status of energy and operational performance of transportation processes. This can lead to effective problem finding and evaluation of energy saving potential. This report explains a guideline of how to calculate SEC for transportation operation. SEC can be evaluated as the ratio between the amounts of energy used and product of transportation activity, which is travel distance (e.g. kilometer), or the value of averaged carried load-travel distance (e.g. ton-kilometer or tkm). According to limitation and understanding on data recording methodology found in most transportation service providers in Thailand, different practical guidelines are proposed, so specific energy consumption (SEC) value can be evaluated properly as an effective energy performance indicator in transportation operation.