In our first blog post, we demonstrated how energy efficiency improves your bottom line. Our second blog post described why tasking your lean team with obtaining energy efficiency maximizes your savings.
There is an entire market dedicated to helping industrial facilities in identifying and capturing energy saving opportunities. The industrial efficiency technology and services market provides the following services:
- Audits & Consulting
Regular energy audits help you discover new energy efficiency opportunities. Identifying and prioritizing these new opportunities creates your roadmap for making cost-effective energy improvements. Because the economics of energy efficiency are in constant flux, new regulations in Europe and India require energy audits every four years;[1], [2], [3] this interval is a best practice state-side, too.
- Optimization Services
The selection of energy-efficient products yields a fraction of the energy savings that system optimization can capture.[4] Intelligent equipment scheduling, process redesign, and condition monitoring reduce these system losses. These optimization services rely heavily on technology to aggregate and analyze near-real-time operations data, equipment performance, weather forecasts, energy rates, and other characteristics important to your industry; then, these optimization engines highlight your personal opportunities for improvement.
- Monitoring & Verification
An integral part of any energy efficiency program, monitoring and verification services quantify your energy savings and help you determine whether your energy efficiency project achieved its targets. Follow the US Department of Energy’s International Performance Measurement & Verification Protocol to increase the credibility of your results. Credible results, in turn, boost executives’ and investors’ confidence in your savings and create inertia for future energy efficiency projects.
This services market is fast-growing — driven by companies’ motivation to achieve internal energy expense, energy consumption, and greenhouse gas emission reduction targets; to comply with increasingly stringent regulatory requirements; and to improve their brand image through proactive environmental stewardship.[5] One report projects this market will grow at a compounded annual growth rate of 6%, topping $10.1 billion globally by 2020.[6] As the services market matures, you’ll find specialized and better service options at lower prices.
For example, Motors@Work specializes just on optimizing your motor-driven systems’ energy use and reliability. With motors consuming one out of every four kilowatt-hours generated in the US and wasting up to 80% of that energy,[7] our motor optimization services can save you 15% of your energy spend.
As described in Figure 1, Motors@Work’s services integrate operations data, equipment performance, weather forecasts, energy rates, and your internal financial criteria to support your many daily decisions that affect how efficiently your motor-driven systems operate.
Figure 1. Motors@Work’s motor intelligence platform integrates operations data, equipment performance, weather forecasts, utility rates, and your financial criteria to support better motor management decisions
Motors@Works pump optimization feature helped Des Moines Water Works, a combined water and sewer utility serving 500,000 in Iowa’s capital city, save $600,000 (15%) of its energy spend by predicting its daily potable water demand and shifting as much water as its storage facilities can hold to off-peak hours. But Des Moines receives its greatest benefit from Motors@Work’s condition monitoring feature. This service identifies performance non-conformities and alerts maintenance staff to these issues, preserving the health — and thus extending the life — of Des Moines’ motors and motor-driven equipment.
Energy efficiency can reduce your energy spend by up to 30% while simultaneously improving reliability, decreasing lost production time, slashing waste, minimizing equipment life-cycle costs, and improving your bottom line. To find out how, download our white paper on Industrial Energy Efficiency.
[1] European Union’s Energy-Efficiency Directive; as summarized in Technavio, “Global Industrial Energy-Efficiency Services Market: 2016 – 2020,” (December 2016).
[2] United Kingdom’s Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme; as summarized in Technavio, 2016
[3] Indian Energy Conservation Act; as summarized in Technavio, 2016
[4] US Department of Energy, Energy Use, Loss & Opportunity Analysis: US Manufacturing & Mining (2004).
[7] US Department of Energy, Energy Use, Loss & Opportunity Analysis: US Manufacturing & Mining (2004).