Book review: Energy management in business by Kit Oung

Energy management in business

Kit Oung / Gower / Hardback £45 / ISBN 978-1-4094-5245-4

This book aims to introduce energy management and reduction techniques to business managers. It is divided into four parts – strategy, tools and techniques, avoidable energy losses, and management – and describes how the involvement of management is central in tackling energy consumption.

The book assumes a relatively sophisticated audience and provides a fair amount of detail to underpin the concepts being introduced. This includes 32 short case studies and a longer fictitious one illustrating specific issues.

However, I would have liked more discussion of the short case studies to help the reader make the connections between the theory and practice.

Overall the book is interesting and covers a lot of ground reasonably quickly. It’s also well referenced, giving the reader the opportunity to find further details.

It does, however, go into too much detail in some areas where it is less accessible. Also, much of the technical data assumes some familiarity with engineering and, as a result, is a little biased towards manufacturing firms.

This is a good book for managers looking to broaden their understanding of the challenges in cutting energy use.

Adam Leaver, AIEMA.