Energy saving strategies start with data

Energy costs for manufacturers are a serious issue. The rising energy prices felt by households across the country are also having a huge impact on UK manufacturers. This, coupled with legislation that is driving towards a Net Zero target by 2050, is creating new challenges for manufacturers to overcome. Meanwhile, the ongoing war in Ukraine is influencing how the UK and our European neighbours source energy. Recent reports suggest the war will negatively impact the UK’s ability to reach Net Zero by the target date in the short term, but accelerate the overall adoption of renewable energy sources in the longer term. While the longer term shift towards renewables may eventually reduce the price sensitivity of energy to global fluctuations in the cost of fossil fuels, the required investment in greener energies is large and it will take time to ween the UK economy off oil and gas. In short, manufacturers must brace themselves for sustained high cost energy for the short and perhaps medium term.

The knee-jerk reaction to the energy issue for manufactures is simple, but also costly. A quick route to more efficient operations would be replace aging, inefficient assets with brand new equipment. While new assets will usually run more efficiently than old assets, it does require a high CAPEX budget, something not accessible for all businesses. Of course the next, simplest, cleanest and most efficient way to reduce the cost of energy for any business or household is to use less of it. The good news is that the capacity to do so, for most manufacturers, lies in data already being produced on the plant floor. 

Energy strategies

Treating energy consumption as a business fundamental requires manufacturers to take a strategic approach to its management. Making a list of pre-determined targets that will impact the overall energy usage of a company can start with very small behavioural changes such as ensuring all lights are switched off when no one is there and changing to more efficient lightbulbs. While such basic steps are important, they are unlikely to make much of a dent in industrial scale energy use. Manufacturing energy strategies need to be all encompassing, looking to reduce energy intensity without compromising on productivity, and finding options to mitigate energy costs based on a company’s individual objectives. There is also the difficult balancing act of operating in an efficient cost-effective manner and presenting a brand which takes its environmental credentials seriously.

To best understand how to implement a strategy like this, it’s important to see the main difference between consumer usage and industry. The lights-off example is a strong place to start. When turning off all devices at the wall when at home, a person can take off a significant percentage of their energy usage. Applying this to a manufacturing setting can yield a similar result, but with some caveats.

Assets in a manufacturing facility can’t always be simply turned on and off. Many operate at a constant pace around the clock. Even in applications that are not running 24/7, shutting down and restarting can often mean a higher energy consumption than consistent operation due to the extra power drain on start-up. Replacing fixed speed drives with Variable Speed Drives (VSDs) is often touted as an effective way to reduce power consumption as the drive adjusts power draw according to the requirements of the process at a given time. While VSDs offer huge potential energy saving benefits, they come at a CAPEX cost and aren’t applicable to all applications. Differentiating vibration levels can move the alignment of assets causing maintenance issues and equipment with nonlinear loads drawing in power in abrupt short bursts can create harmonic currents which actually results in higher energy costs.

Where VSDs are too not suitable, there are often other ways to reduce energy consumption.

Starting point

The tools for a successful manufacturing energy strategy can be found in the ever-growing mountain of data, readily found in most manufacturing enterprises. Putting this to good use can make fast advancements in the realms of equipment efficiency, workforce efficiency and the all-important energy efficiency without the dreaded rip-and-replace of high-cost assets.

Most modern industrial assets have IoT capabilities and can already record data about energy consumption, and for the assets that don’t, IoT devices can be fitted very simply and at low cost. Energy consumption data is an enabler of efficiency quick-wins when assets that are still performing their tasks properly, are less efficient than when the asset was new. Putting this data to use often identifies areas of industrial environments that would otherwise have been overlooked, opening new operational improvement decisions that can now be made with greater confidence.

So, a successful and cost-effective energy strategy should always start with data. Manufacturers should seek a combined IT and OT collaborative system that can act as a complete command and control solution for contextualised energy use. This requires taking some big steps towards digital transformation, and is seldom a simple process, but the dividends are huge across three key areas:

1) Equipment efficiency

Whether a manufacturer is managing one facility or multiple, an in-depth understanding of asset health is imperative to finding efficiency quick wins that may not be identifiable by sight alone. The right software choice will let manufacturer’s drill down to specific asset information such as temperature, pressure and of course energy consumption.

This granular detail can identify the causes of efficiency issues such as worn bearings or weakened pullies. Such inefficiencies may not put an immediate stop to production but over time they increase the energy consumption of a facility. Timely maintenance programmes informed by data help reduce both energy consumption and unplanned downtime.

2) Workforce efficiency

Expert maintenance is often needed to keep operations moving, requiring in-person intervention. Getting the right expertise to a facility or an asset within a facility to investigate a fault often means lost production. This whole process can be streamlined through the company-wide access to a single digital thread. Expert maintenance professionals can assess the issue remotely and often put a plan into action immediately. Accelerating how quickly an issue can be solved and if in-person intervention is still required, the operator has all the information they need to begin fixing as soon as they arrive on site.

3) Energy efficiency

The right software provides the intelligence to make better decisions and the confidence to shift power heavy processes to avoid peak energy times. Where assets or processes that demand the highest amount of power can operate when the cost of energy is at its lowest, costs are reduced significantly. Not only does this save money, it helps the grid balance energy demands towards renewable sources.

Rising energy costs impact everyone and we all need to take action to save our wallets and better protect the environment. This mission is infinitely more complicated for manufacturers who are working with stakeholders and managing razor-thin budgets, but improving efficiency isn’t an all or nothing approach. New equipment isn’t always the most financially sound option, the right software will enable UK manufacturers to reduce their energy usage, improve efficiency and optimise the workforce without disruption.

Sue Roche is general manager at SolutionsPT

info.solutionspt.com