Top 10 tips to reduce industrial energy costs on your production floor

How much of the energy you pay for each month is used to power your plant?

Unless you have an energy management focus in the organisation that knows exactly how much energy is being used, when and where then I can tell you that typically it is less than half, with the rest escaping through leaky air compressors, inefficient equipment and working practices.

Think about it – you could be wasting over 30 percent of the energy you purchase, whether you purchase directly or using a broker.

This all adds up to a lot of unnecessary energy costs.

To make your manufacturing facility more energy-efficient and less expensive to run, here are some tips to reduce industrial energy costs on your production floor.

1. Develop an Energy Management Team

One of the primary reasons energy and cost-saving initiatives fail is because it’s unclear whose responsibility it is to manage the undertaking. Develop an energy management team by pulling a representative from top management and each department. Bring in those who already have an incentive to keep costs low or build in a bonus or reward scheme that can be tied to the amount of energy the team saves.

Together, they can work to change behaviours, monitor energy usage throughout the organisation and implement ways to reduce waste.

2. Analyse your energy bills

Understand how your bills are made up and keep a record of how much you are using and when.

3. Measure

You need to be able to measure how much energy is being used, where and when – this might require installing appropriate metering equipment to get usage data in real-time.

4. Conduct an Energy Audit

Energy audits can be performed in-house – The carbon trust has some excellent guides!

Alternatively, seek professional help from an energy specialist if you want an audit that will look at your HVAC systems, quantifying how much energy each part of your organisation is consuming, identifying peak consumption times and opportunities to make savings.

5. Decide what your energy budget is going to be

Look for quick wins and best return on any investment, including cost-effective control of plant and equipment, lighting etc.

6. Strategically Schedule Machinery Use

Using the intelligence collected from your energy audit, consider which machinery requires the most energy to run. If possible, schedule operation of these machines outside of peak tariff hours.

7. Schedule Shut-Downs and Start-Ups

Scheduled production floor shut-downs, where all machinery is powered off for a length of time (during the weekend or off-shift periods), can substantially lower energy costs.

To know when to schedule these shut-downs, you’ll need visibility into peak operational hours. Likewise, powering up all machinery at once can create a significant spike in your facilities energy demand. Production floors should stagger equipment start-up to reduce this spike.

8. Optimise Air Compressors

Industrial air compressors are to blame for huge amounts of energy consumption and waste. Some are poorly designed, while others are improperly maintained.

Just one leak can cost your business £00’s per year. If you have multiple leaks, your air compressors are practically siphoning money right out of your operations budget.

9. Renewables and other Advanced Energy Technologies

This must be part of your overall business plan, but it must take into account your current and future property needs!

Just remember renewables provide an array of benefits beyond price hedging. They can help companies position themselves advantageously in advance of future regulations and carbon reduction ambitions.

10. Review and share

Frequently review the success of the initiatives you have put in place and look to continually improve, set targets and shout about them to all staff and other stakeholders.

Lets get the conversation started – call us now on 0151 601 3476 or contact us