My name is Fred Nicolosi. I am a qualified Electrical Engineer with a Master of Engineering Science, and MBA. I went to the USA in late 2003 and became an accredited Certified Measurement and Verification Professional (CMVP). I am the first and, at present, the only CMVP in Australia.
 
Measurement and Verification (M&V) is of fundamental importance to the measurement of energy savings for energy efficiency projects as well as to the credibility of energy reporting. For details on M&V go to http://www.ipmvp.org/ and for details on the CMVP go to  http://www.ipmvp.org/services.html#CMVP
 
I worked in the Queensland electricity industry for many years planning and building power system control, SCADA,  metering and communications systems. I was seconded to work for the Queensland Government for five years. I started Energy Decisions in 1998 when the contestable electricity market opened in Queensland.
 
AusIndustry funded, through AEPCA http://www.aepca.asn.au/, Energy Decisions to author the Best Practice Guide to Measurement and Verification of Energy Savings - I am in the final stages of producing the final version and have a hard deadline to meet. Consequently, I can't attend your public hearing in Brisbane on the Wednesday 17 November 2004.
 
I would like the opportunity to make a submission on the following 
 
1. The use of M&V processes and practices to improve the credibility and quality of energy savings reporting and energy reporting in general - in the USA the use of M&V is mandated by legislation for Federal Agencies undertaking EPC projects - the same processes and practices are used widely for energy savings programs - incentive and rebate programs - managed by States in the USA. I can provide further information on why M&V is very important in facilitating energy efficiency projects and savings outcomes.
  
2. The development of a national standard on how energy and water suppliers provide consumption, demand and cost data to end-use customers. This is the biggest barrier to the awareness of end-use customers about their consumption and demand. End-use customers know how many pencils, mobile phones and other resources they have and consume - they have internal resource management processes to collect and report. But most of them don't have the same internal processes for energy and water consumption - except for the industrial end-use customers. The main reason is that end-use customers have to derive their energy and water consumption data from the revenue collection processes of each Supplier. The bills are all different and very few make the information available electronically. It is very time-consuming to capture the consumption and demand data from the paper bills. Also, of course there is a well-known apathy about end-use customers managing their usage of essential resources such as energy and water. The supply side of the energy and water markets have standards on how they exchange information between themselves. We need a standard - with flexibility - on how Suppliers present or give access to consumption and demand data, as well as cost data. The technology is available to make this relatively easy. At present, there is no real incentive for Suppliers to do this and they like to differentiate themselves through their "different" billing styles. That can be left in place but there should be and underlying common format and access regime for end-use customers to get the consumption, demand and cost data when they need it.
 
In summary, my contribution to the enquiry is to make you aware of the barriers to energy efficiency from the end-use customer perspective - some of the barriers of their own making but others are caused by the traditional barriers imposed by Suppliers through the way they give end-use customers access to the data they need to manage their use of energy and water resources.
 
I am planning to send in a full submission in early December 2004
 
regards
fred nicolosi