Hidden potential for saving energy costs
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Three quick wins for reducing energy costs
Energy-intensive companies are particularly hard hit by the trend in electricity prices.
To overcome the new challenges, Pascal Benoit, founder and Managing Director of ENIT, presents 3 quick wins in the area of energy cost reduction in this video. The focus is on avoiding peak loads, detecting standby loads and optimizing operating states.
The video here in written form:
Rising energy costs pose major challenges for medium-sized industrial companies. Everyone wants to save, whether it's energy or energy costs.
In this video, ENIT's CEO Pascal Benoit talks about 3 quick-wins in the field of energy management that work in principle for all medium-sized companies. They can save a lot of money in just a few months.
As a provider of energy and CO2 management, we have supported several hundred industrial companies in introducing an energy management system in recent years.
Particularly in the industrial and SME sector, companies differ in their energy management status. Some companies are already well equipped and just want to improve their system. One thing that all companies have in common is the classic savings potential, which is usually discovered in the first few months. In order to recognize the savings potential, you should look at the energy data in high resolution.
The 3 classic savings potentials that become apparent after just a few months are
- Reduction of standby consumption
- Identification of peak loads
- Optimization of system states
The prerequisite for all 3 points is high-resolution data. Of course, it is not enough just to have the data, it must also be used.
To demonstrate this clearly, we have calculated some examples using real data from our customers.
Reduction of standby consumption:
In the scenario shown in the video, the load profile of a manufacturing company is shown. It is very easy to see at what time production took place and at what time production was at a standstill. However, if you compare the standby load before production with that afterwards, you can see that around 20kW more was consumed than before. In this case, a system was forgotten to be switched off, which happens in almost every business.
If you calculate these 20 kW over the year at an electricity price of 20 cents per kilowatt, this finding alone results in potential savings of €30,000.
Avoidance of peak loads:
In addition to a high base load, peak loads are the main cost drivers for manufacturing companies. If they do not have their own data, companies are often reliant on the information provided by the energy supplier and therefore have little opportunity to find out when, where and, above all, why a peak load has occurred. However, if it is possible to view high-resolution data in a graphical representation, it is very easy to form correlations that quickly lead to high savings. In the example in the video, it can be seen very clearly that a load peak occurred on Monday morning at the start of production, which can be attributed to the simultaneous start-up of all systems. This can occur not only at the beginning of the week, but also after the lunch break. Again, based on experience with customers, a potential saving of €30000 can be expected. You can see how Hiller Objektmöbel GmbH was able to reduce its energy costs so successfully in this video.
Optimization of system states:
A scenario from the food industry serves as an example of this. They had 4 transformers on 2 low-voltage main distribution boards. By adding a single meter and observing various operating states, it was possible to recognize that one transformer was sufficient for a low-voltage main distribution board and the second transformer intended for this purpose was usually only running in standby mode. By switching off the unfavorably placed transformer, savings of more than 40000€ per year could be achieved.
By realizing the 3 potential savings, around €100,000 can be saved annually.
In addition, there are other advantages of an energy monitoring system such as
- Reduction of internal and external costs
- Saving on consulting costs for ISO 50001
- Better decisions based on energy data as a foundation
In order to exploit the potential, it is important to use the data that is available. It is of no use if you collect data but do not use it.