Frequently asked questions

Most engagements begin with a short scoping conversation followed by a site walk-through and a review of your existing energy data. From there we agree the objective, whether that is a compliance audit, an ISO 50001 system, a decarbonisation roadmap or utility optimisation, and we set a clear scope, timeline and deliverables before any fieldwork begins. The first paid step is usually a focused audit or feasibility study, so you see value and a credible savings estimate before committing to a larger programme.

Pricing depends on site complexity, the number of utilities and the depth of work, so we scope and quote each engagement rather than quoting a single rate. As a guide, a single-site energy audit typically falls in the low tens of thousands of euro, an ISO 50001 implementation runs higher and over several months, and ongoing energy management is usually a retainer tied to scope. Where it fits, we can structure commercial models around verified savings so our incentives stay aligned with yours.

EM3 does not sell equipment and we take no commissions from technology suppliers, so our recommendations are driven by your engineering and financial case rather than a product line we need to move. That independence means the measures we propose, whether a heat pump, a controls upgrade or a process change, are chosen on merit. As part of SHV Energy we have the backing of a large international group while remaining impartial in the advice we give.

We work under non-disclosure agreements as standard and treat process recipes, production volumes and energy data as commercially sensitive throughout the engagement. Data is handled on a need-to-know basis within the assigned team, and we can align with your IT, GxP and information-security requirements, which matters in regulated pharma and food environments. We are comfortable working inside your data governance rules rather than asking you to bend them for us.

Our core focus is pharmaceuticals and food and beverage, with strong work also in chemicals and data centres, all sectors where utilities and process energy are significant and tightly regulated. We are an engineering-led team managing energy across more than 150 industrial sites, with offices in Ireland (our headquarters in Limerick), the UK, Spain and the USA. That footprint lets us support multi-site organisations consistently across countries while staying close to local grids, grants and regulation.

An audit combines a data review, a detailed site survey of your major energy users, and analysis of how utilities such as steam, compressed air, chilled water and HVAC actually perform against demand. For a single industrial site, expect roughly four to eight weeks from kick-off to final report, depending on size, metering quality and how many systems are in scope. The output is a prioritised list of measures with estimated savings, costs and payback, not just a description of where energy goes.

At minimum we need 12 to 24 months of utility bills and any half-hourly or interval meter data, plus single-line diagrams, equipment schedules and production output figures so we can normalise energy against activity. Sub-metering, BMS trends and SCADA exports make the analysis far sharper, and where data is thin we can deploy temporary metering to fill the gaps. We will tell you exactly what is useful up front so your team is not chasing information that will not change the result.

Yes. We scope audits to meet the requirements of the EU Energy Efficiency Directive (2023/1791) and the ISO 50002 energy audit standard, which was revised into a multi-part series in 2025. Under the directive, enterprises consuming more than 10 TJ per year must hold a compliant energy audit, while those above 85 TJ are expected to operate a certified energy management system, with national transposition landing through 2026 and 2027. We design each audit to map cleanly onto the obligation that applies to your sites in each country.

It varies by site, but on energy-intensive plants we commonly identify meaningful savings across utilities, controls and process integration, often a double-digit percentage of utility spend when no-cost and low-cost measures are included. Across the portfolio we manage, around 1.6 billion euro of annual energy spend, we identified roughly 250 million euro of savings opportunities in the last year alone. The point of the audit is to separate quick operational wins from larger capital projects so you can act on both with confidence.

We base measurement and verification on the IPMVP framework, agreeing a baseline, adjustment factors and the measurement boundary before a project starts so results are defensible later. After implementation we compare normalised performance against that baseline, accounting for changes in production, weather and product mix, rather than relying on a one-off snapshot. With more than 1.2 million datapoints collected each day across the sites we manage, we can track performance continuously rather than assuming a measure keeps working.

ISO 50002 is the standard for conducting an energy audit, a structured assessment that identifies and prioritises opportunities to improve energy performance at a point in time. ISO 50001 is the broader management-system standard that establishes ongoing processes, roles, targets and continual improvement so energy performance keeps improving year after year. In practice an ISO 50002 audit often feeds the energy review inside an ISO 50001 system, so the two work together rather than competing.

For a typical industrial site, expect roughly 9 to 18 months from kick-off to certification, depending on the maturity of your existing data, metering and management processes. The work moves through an energy review and baseline, setting objectives and energy performance indicators, building the documented system, running it for a period to generate evidence, then internal audit and management review before the certification body's stage 1 and stage 2 audits. Organisations that already have ISO 9001 or ISO 14001 usually move faster because the management-system foundations are already in place.

Yes, multi-site certification is well suited to organisations with several plants, and it is often more efficient than certifying each site separately. We build a common management framework with shared procedures and energy performance indicators, then tailor the energy review and baselines to each site's processes and utilities. Certification bodies typically use a sampling approach across sites, which keeps audit effort proportionate while still giving you one coherent system and one certificate.

A certified ISO 50001 system is explicitly recognised as a compliance route under the EU Energy Efficiency Directive (2023/1791), and it generally exempts a site from the separate mandatory audit requirement. Enterprises above the 85 TJ annual consumption threshold are expected to operate a certified energy management system, with the largest users facing this from around October 2027 as member states transpose the directive. Because national rules differ in detail, we confirm the exact obligation and timing for each of your sites so the certification you invest in actually discharges the requirement.

Many internal teams understand their plant well but lack the time, the auditing experience and the energy-data analytics to build a system that passes audit and genuinely drives performance. We bring the engineering depth to set credible baselines and energy performance indicators, the methodology to make the system defensible, and the outside perspective to spot opportunities the day-to-day team has stopped noticing. The aim is to leave your people running a system they own and understand, not dependent on us to keep it alive.

A roadmap gives you a costed, time-phased plan to cut emissions across scope 1 and scope 2, grounded in your real energy and process data rather than generic assumptions. Typical deliverables include a verified emissions baseline, a marginal abatement view that ranks measures by cost per tonne, a sequenced project pipeline with capital and payback estimates, and a trajectory aligned to your science-based or corporate targets. It is built to be a decision tool for the board and capital planning, not a report that sits on a shelf.

For a large share of industrial heat demand, yes, particularly low and medium-temperature loads up to around 150 to 160 degrees Celsius that suit industrial heat pumps, with electric boilers, mechanical vapour recompression and resistive heating covering other duties. Feasibility comes down to your temperature requirements, load profiles, electricity-to-gas price ratio and available grid capacity, which is exactly what we assess before recommending anything. We often find that heat recovery and demand reduction should come first, because shrinking the load makes electrification both cheaper and easier to connect.

A well-designed industrial heat pump can deliver three or more units of heat per unit of electricity, which can offset a higher electricity price compared with gas and cut energy use at the same time. Emissions benefit immediately where your grid is relatively clean and improve further as the grid decarbonises, and they fall further still if you pair electrification with on-site or contracted renewables. We model your specific tariffs, load profiles and grid carbon intensity so the business case reflects your site rather than a generic average.

Energy efficiency and heat-recovery measures often pay back within one to three years, which is why we sequence them ahead of larger capital projects. Fuel-switching and electrification projects tend to have longer paybacks, frequently in the five to ten year range, though available grants, carbon pricing and energy-price movements can shorten that materially. We present each measure with its own payback and sensitivity so you can balance quick wins against the structural changes needed to hit longer-term targets.

Across the industrial sites we manage, our work saved 218,000 tonnes of CO2 in 2023, achieved through a combination of efficiency, utility optimisation and decarbonisation projects rather than offsets. That sits alongside more than 150 sites under management and over 1.2 million datapoints captured each day, which is what lets us measure reductions rather than estimate them. The same engineering-led, data-driven method is what we apply to your roadmap.

In Ireland, SEAI's EXEED (Excellence in Energy Efficient Design) scheme is the main route for large industrial projects, offering support up to 3 million euro or 40 percent per project, with separate funding for the early feasibility and design stages. It is aimed at larger energy users and remains open for applications year-round. Because grant value depends on company size and the energy savings delivered, we build the technical and savings case so your application is well evidenced from the start.

Incentives vary significantly by country, so the funding strategy for a multi-site organisation has to be built market by market. The UK offers a mix of tax allowances and competitive decarbonisation funding for industry, Spain channels significant support through national and EU recovery-linked programmes for industrial efficiency and electrification, and the USA combines federal credits such as the Section 48 investment tax credit and 48C advanced manufacturing credit with state-level and utility rebate programmes that shifted notably in 2026. We help you map which schemes each site qualifies for and time projects to capture them.

Yes. Because grant bodies want robust technical and savings evidence, the audit and feasibility work we do feeds directly into a stronger application, and we can support the energy-related technical content and verification methodology that funders ask for. We work alongside your finance or grants team rather than replacing them, since many schemes require the applicant organisation to lead the submission. The goal is to maximise the eligible support without delaying the project.

Often, yes, and this is where independent advice matters most. A measure that looks marginal on energy savings alone can become clearly viable once a 30 to 40 percent grant, avoided carbon costs and verified ongoing savings are factored in. We model the full picture, capital cost, grant support, energy and carbon savings and the IPMVP-based verification, so the investment case reflects the real return rather than the sticker price.