Process companies target energy savings

In the aftermath of the Government’s Energy Review, Jo Reeves of industry analysts IMS looks at how process industry companies are moving to put energy efficiency issues at the forefront of business priorities:

Manufacturers are now faced with a deluge of regulation to comply with and government targets to meet. As energy prices soar, it’s not just a case of saving the planet – energy efficiency solutions are saving businesses significant amounts of money.

The release of the 2006 Energy Review is perhaps this year’s most significant contribution to the UK’s climate change programme. Reinforcing targets set by 2003’s Energy White Paper, the review looks at the future for industry and the public and how to implement the necessary legislation to make significant cuts in CO2 emissions.

Security of supply is one of the major factors in the current energy market. With the UK increasingly relying on imported oil and gas, fears over dwindling supplies and the impossibility of us being self-sufficient have made the movement towards energy efficient technologies even more crucial.

Now that energy management becoming more central to business, it is simply not enough to implement measures on an ad-hoc basis. “Because of the cost implications, the legislative imperative and the dangers to reputation, companies really need an energy management strategy,” said Robin Phillips, finance director of Siemens Automation & Drives. “Energy usage affects the whole company, so it should be a central factor in decision-making.”

The Climate Change Levy, EU Emissions Trading Scheme and Climate Change and Energy Sustainability Act, all encourage industry to choose energy efficient technologies and solutions to avoid fines and taxes – not to mention reducing their own costs. The plethora of legislation can be confusing and some schemes are voluntary, whereas others are obligatory. An increasing number of energy consultants are rising to meet business needs and offer strategies to enable them to make the necessary changes to their processes.

Surrey-based energy consultancy Energys offers a service, which works in stages to survey, audit, assess and apply strategies and targets to reduce companies’ energy consumption. Managing director Vince Wells said: “We work with clients to identify where they can improve on energy efficiency. We enable them to set realistic targets and plan effectively to adhere to relevant regulations. Our service is tailored to meet client needs, but we try to encourage a lasting relationship with continuous assessment, in order for companies to get the best long term financial benefits.”

The increase in awareness surrounding energy efficiency has encouraged the uptake of energy efficient technology. Factory automation vendors such as Siemens Automation & Drives are increasingly working with companies to deliver improvements in energy efficiency across a wide range of industrial sectors.

Among the companies employing this technology is Campbell Grocery Products Ltd (CGPL). The food products manufacturer installed a Siemens WinCC SCADA package at its Worksop plant at the start of 2000. With five autonomous manufacturing ‘centres’ and an R&D facility on site, the consumption of gas, electricity, water, steam and compressed air is fairly high for typical production operations.

Today, nearly six years on, a programme of continuous upgrade is allowing the company to achieve energy savings increasing by 2% year-on-year, while the original outlay was recouped in less than one year. In addition to energy cost reductions, the SCADA system has also enabled CGPL to complete verification for 2005 for the first phase of the EU-ETS combustion plant emissions programme.

“As well as helping us comply with industry requirements for monitoring and targeting, in the first three years we saw a six-figure financial saving enabling the original project outlay to be recouped in less than one year,” said Mick Blackburn, energy manager at the Worksop site. “Today we are actually witnessing a 2% energy cost reduction year-on-year, which is pretty impressive.”

CGPL also engaged Midlands-based Maxsys Ltd, which provides energy-saving equipment across a range of industries, including automotive, brewing, chemicals, dairy, food, insulation, minerals, packaging, paper, textiles and pharmaceuticals.

Maxsys’ Fuel+ system pre-treats fuel (gas and oil) supplied to the burners of a unit to enhance combustion, producing a cleaner burn and reducing carbon emissions. Since CGPL fitted the system to its boiler system 18 months ago, it has achieved a 5% reduction in gas consumption and has already recouped its initial capital outlay for the system.

The system has also helped CGPL to meet its eligibility targets for the Climate Change Levy discount. As Blackburn explained: “Our targets are already set up to 2011, however, because of the work we have already undertaken and the systems we have implemented, including Fuel+, we are already meeting our targets for 2010.”

Clean technology research has been underway for many years and in the future it is hoped that these solutions will offer a major contribution towards cutting carbon outputs. The Centre for Sustainable Engineering (CSEng) is a portal for innovative sustainable technologies. CSEng analyses products for technical and economical merit and helps find routes to successful commercialism. This includes work on carbon sequestration, marine, solar and wind power, combined heat and power, biomass, hydrogen fuel cell technology and advanced metering.

“Technology has the ability to completely transform the way we source and use energy. If engineers and scientists were given full reign we could become a carbon zero society. What is preventing us from this is our existing infrastructure, the amount of money that has been invested in it, how long it has been established and the change of culture that a society using only clean energy would have to undergo,” said Phil Sheppard, CSEng operations director.

Recent research by CSEng shows that some micro combined heat and power systems (11% carbon reduction) and, for some types of building and area, ground source heat (25-40% saving) and micro wind technologies (up to 90% of average household power use), are on the cusp of viability, according to Sheppard. These could be made easily affordable by the nation if the same market arrangements apply to them as to central power generation or gas supply.

Examples of highly energy efficient technologies include: thermal and acoustic insulation – which is at least twice as efficient as anything currently on the market; intelligent design of air flows in buildings, based on real data, to enable natural ventilation systems to work and avoid mechanical air conditioning, and the use of direct steam injection in food processing – which can save over 80% of energy consumption in the prepared foods industry – the UK’s largest manufacturing sector.

There is a bright future for clean technologies – as long as our existing infrastructure is receptive to them. And many industry sectors have already achieved significant cuts in carbon emissions since 1990. As recorded by the UK Environmental Accounts Spring 2005, in the commerce and public administration sector, for example, emissions per unit of output fell by 6.9% between 2003 and 2004, output from the non-domestic sector fell by 2.4% in that time and are now 38.8% below their 1990 level.

However, the manufacturing and construction industries showed a small increase in emissions intensity, perhaps as a direct result of the constant demand for increase in the size of this industry. Whatever the reason, energy efficiency now demands vital economical considerations for industry, as debilitating energy prices achieve the ability to quite literally make or break a business.