http://www.retscreen.net/ang/home.php

Now also on-line communities emerge that support users of this sofware, such as the “RET Screen Users International”:

http://retscreen.ning.com/

This is a very promising development and one that needs to be taken after by other countries that could contribute to the development of methods and software for various areas of energy transformation.

In a project that I led two years ago, commissioned by the Swedish Government’s Energy Agency (STEM) we analyzed what can be done by companies in order to improve the energy efficiency of their supply chains. One important finding in this project was that there is a need for a wide range of methods in order to develop practices in this field, indicated by a number of large international companies.

Companies in general meet with their key suppliers for a few hours once or twice every year. During these meetings they need to spend most of the time to discuss key issues related to quality, deliveries, product development or other important aspects. The time left to discuss energy the efficiency of each supplier may be down to a few minutes per meeting. In order to make it possible to substantially reduce the energy consumption of supply chains the energy consumption of each supplier needs to be precisely measured, and goals need to be set that are understood and interpreted in the same way by both customer and supplier. In order for this to be possible for different types of supplier, that produce components for just-in-time delivery or suppliers of company cars, or suppliers of stationery and office equipment, a coherent set of methods need to be developed. This was the conclusion made by large companies like ABB, Volvo and SKF, that really want to contribute as much as possible to this process themselves.

So far, however, nothing has been done in order to start the development of methods and softare in this area. RET Screen International and the user communities that arise around this tool remains one of the few examples of national governments that contribute to the need for free software for the various needs of Global Energy Transformation.

Bookmark It