Energy Savings in Manufacturing

Generating and Calculating Energy Intensity Savings from Manufacturing Productivity Improvement Projects

In 2004-05, Southern California Edison (SCE) contracted with CMTC to demonstrate that plant energy efficiency could be cost effectively realized as a result of factory productivity improvement projects partially funded by the utility. This approach emphasizes increasing the efficiency of the whole manufacturing process and not just individual pieces of equipment such as lighting, motors, fans, pumps, compressors, boilers, etc.

The energy savings estimation tool developed for this program evaluates the energy savings as being the result of one or a combination of the following energy saving impacts:

• Material waste reduction
• Equipment (or process) energy efficiency improvement, and/or plant productivity improvements.
• Interval meter energy use and daily production levels (if data availalbe)
• Regression analyzes were performed to estimate the savings and/or compare to the results calculated with the program’s energy savings estimation tool.

This paper will also discuss:

• Lessons learned
• Data collection requirements for estimating and verifying project savings
• Estimated program impacts, and issues such as improving the sustainability of results.

Study Details