PlantmarginPlantmargin blog
Maximum demand: why one bad half-hour sets the month's demand charge
How the demand charge is calculated, what usually causes the peak, and practical ways to keep it down without cutting production.
Cost per unit by production lot: let the best shift set the standard
Why monthly averages hide the biggest saving in most plants, and how lot-by-lot costing turns it into a target.
Battery or generator for backup power: the honest comparison
When a battery pays for itself as backup, when a generator is still the better answer, and why many sites end up with both.
Steam and boiler losses in tea, dairy and sugar plants
Excess air, stack temperature, failed traps and blowdown: where boiler fuel goes, and the measurements that find it.
Is your solar plant performing? Performance ratio and soiling explained
How to tell whether a solar system is producing what it should, using performance ratio, specific yield and inverter-by-inverter comparison.
Kenya's Energy Management Regulations, 2025: what designated facilities must do
Who is designated, how often the audit is due, the energy manager and the 50% implementation rule, in plain language.
Sizing solar from your own meters, not from a guess
Why the hourly load shape decides the right solar size, and how a metered profile changes the answer compared with the monthly bill.
Variable speed drives on fans and pumps: a practical payback guide
Why throttling with dampers and valves wastes energy, how the affinity laws estimate the saving, and what to measure first.
Net metering in Kenya: what industrial sites need to know
How the Energy (Net-Metering) Regulations, 2024 treat exported solar, the limits that apply, and why self-consumption still matters most.
Power factor correction: when it pays, and how to size it
How a low power factor costs a plant money, and how to size a capacitor bank from measured data rather than rules of thumb.
Grid-tied, hybrid or off-grid solar: choosing the right system for a plant
The three types of solar system, what each one does in an outage, how each is sized, and which sites each one suits.
Reading your Kenya Power bill, line by line
What each charge on an industrial electricity bill means, how it is calculated, and which ones a plant can actually influence.