Benchmarking and Energy Management Schemes in SMEs (BESS)

BESS supports SMEs from the food and drink industry in improving their energy efficiency. Implementing an energy management system is the best way for a company to deal consequently with energy matters and therefore be able to find energy saving potentials. Especially when energy costs are increasing energy management becomes interesting for companies again. But often SMEs do not have the personnel resources and knowledge to implement energy management. BESS offers an easy to follow way with various tools like an "energy management implementation model" and an e-learning system on the BESS website. Additionally an international benchmarking scheme for specific energy consumption was established, offering the possibility to compare specific energy consumption with a large number of other companies from the same sector. The benchmarking scheme is based on the already successful Norwegian benchmarking scheme where 63% of the industrial energy consumption is represented.