Letters From Our Readers: April 1, 2013

Prediction: Factories to Focus on Efficiency

I think we will see an increase in GDP for the U.S. over the next several years, and I think we will see more factories focusing on efficiency. That will come from a couple of different avenues. One of them is going to be reducing power consumption while increasing product output.

Sounds crazy, right? I recently completed a project where the upfront cost was $65,000 (all numbers are rough estimates). The end user received an $18,000 rebate from the power company for completing the project. The project consisted of the retrofit application of almost all of their HVAC equipment, schedule control of two existing large air compressors, the installation of isolation valves on select air lines used for purging during manufacturing, and the addition of a couple of VFDs on existing process machinery motors. The end result: an 18 percent decrease in power consumption, with a 33 percent increase in production. When I asked the energy coordinator for this company what provoked them to pursue an EMS and to be more energy efficient, he responded, “Our customers asked us what we were going to do to lower our prices this year?”