Reduce Consumption. You can use
less energy—for example, by taking
advantage of more efficient equipment,
designing improvements such as reuse
of waste heat into your processes, or
scheduling production intelligently to
minimize energy-intensive changeover
procedures.
Access Lower Rates. You also can
use cheaper energy—by managing
where, how, and when energy is used
to harness it when it is least expensive,
such as during off-peak times.
Optimize Energy Use. The third, most
sophisticated dimension—and the one
that will ultimately have the most im-
pact on financial performance—is op-
timizing energy use to achieve produc-
tion goals in the least expensive, most
profitable way while balancing the many
variables inherent in manufacturing. In
other words, you can actively manage
your energy as one of many inputs to
the overall production equation, rather
than simply as plant overhead.
7 PILLARS OF INDUSTRIAL
ENERGY MANAGEMENT
You can leverage seven capability pillars to invest energy strategically into
your production processes. Be sure to
implement an ongoing program of energy assessments to help you identify
changes, establish the scope of your
program, and define key metrics.
1. Monitor the Facility. Before you
can begin to manage the energy consumption in your facility, you first have
to gain insights into what your energy
usage and quality patterns are. After
all, you cannot manage what you cannot see.
Production Monitoring Understand machine-level energy consumption of the plant floor in real time
Capturing Energy on
the Production BOM
View energy as a
manageable input that can
be documented on the
production bill of materials
Facility
Scorecarding
Extend the infrastructure to
provide energy “scorecards”
and optimize the supply chain
with energy as a consideration
Modeling
Use modeling and simulation
solutions that factor in energy
as a variable for optimizing
profitability
Controlling
Enable automated
optimization of production
with energy as a variable
Responding
Enable response to external
market factors to optimize
according to real-time supply
You can optimize your energy consumption in seven ways.
Chances are you already measure
your energy consumption at some level.
However, some manufacturers know
only what their utility provider tells them
regarding total energy usage in the entire building. To expand that knowledge,
you can also monitor the facility’s
metering infrastructure to collect data
about all energy resources—water,
air, gas, electricity, steam—relative to
equipment usage and environmental
conditions (see lead photo). You can
then log and time-stamp this data in an
energy historian software program to
establish obvious trends or discrepan-cies in energy quality and consumption
and establish benchmarks for future
improvement.
With a big-picture view of your facility’s overall energy use, you can identify
and make operational changes to help
reduce energy consumption and costs.
This might include shedding loads or
lowering power levels for a few minutes
when the facility is approaching peak
use.
The information gathered at the fa-cility-monitoring level also can help you
understand and manage power quality.
With a log of historical data, you can
identify power quality issues such as
voltage sags or harmonics that can
damage plant equipment or lower your
power factor. As a result, you can protect your equipment better and also
avoid penalty fees imposed by utility
companies for low power factors.
Monitoring usage should be an ongoing effort, rather than a one-time
event, to help identify variables such
as how seasons might affect production and whether previously implemented improvements are performing
as planned.
2. Monitor Production. To understand energy consumption at the plant
floor or production unit level, work
with your automation provider to identify useful data collection points across
machines and lines, and program your
