Saving by changing how you use energy

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Investing in energy-efficiency improvements is being seen more and more as the right business strategy, especially for sustainability-minded Oregon businesses. Some organizations are discovering that significant savings are possible with little or no capital investment when they learn to look deeply at how they use energy and adopt a strategic approach to energy management. This spring, representatives from 10 Oregon industrial businesses completed the first year of an initiative to do just that. The results of their efforts are impressive.

Ten businesses, referred to as a cohort, are recruited each year to participate in Energy Trust of Oregon’s Industrial Energy Improvement initiative. The first cohort achieved annual energy savings of 2 percent to 27 percent with little or no capital investment. Adopting continuous improvement practices drove the savings and delivered the added benefits of productivity, safety and environmental performance improvements. Energy Trust is currently recruiting companies for the third cohort; energy savings results from the second cohort will be available before the end of the year.

The Industrial Energy Improvement initiative is a peer-based effort designed to help industrial operations develop and implement strategies to reduce energy intensity. Energy Trust, with help from the Northwest High Performance Enterprise Consortium, forms cohorts that include facility managers and others from 10 to 12 non-competing firms. Each receives coaching and support from energy engineers provided through Energy Trust. Over 14 months, participants learn and share ideas through workshops, webinars and meetings, helping each other take a fresh look at their operations.

Industries represented in the first Industrial Energy Improvement cohort ranged from high-tech and wood products to metal products and automotive. All are Oregon customers of Portland General Electric or Pacific Power, with annual electricity costs of more than $500,000. Future participants must meet the same criteria as the first cohort, commit two staff members to the process and demonstrate management support for reducing energy intensity. The commitment of time was significant, and these companies understand that they're getting information and training that is extremely valuable to their companies in return.

Most participants had already invested in improving energy efficiency, and all were motivated to dig deeper to analyze their energy use. Over the course of the year, they discovered that they can reduce energy operating costs and improve production, often with simple fixes like regular monitoring and new procedures for equipment shut-down and start-up.

Initiative components include assessing energy use, adopting an energy policy, creating an energy team and monitoring energy information. However, companies that save the most are those that learn to look deeply at how their facilities use energy, engage both employees and management in energy-saving campaigns and embrace peer-to-peer support.

The experiences of three companies in the first cohort demonstrate the power of the approach:

• At a Portland-area cement terminal, the plant manager and the energy team participated in a comprehensive energy assessment. While only a few action items were identified, implementing them reduced electricity costs by eight percent, trimming use by approximately 503,000 kilowatt hours. Through modeling analysis, the team learned that double handling of materials in the manufacturing process was driving up energy consumption. Inventory management resulted in substantial savings and reduced wear on process equipment.

• An Oregon wood products company mobilized employees to drive savings of 16 percent at a dimension sawmill and 17 percent at a hardboard plant. While each facility had its own energy team, both implemented employee suggestion programs to continually identify energy-saving opportunities. Successful employee engagement allowed the facilities to identify and implement a variety of low-cost production efficiency projects for combined savings of nearly 5.6 million kilowatt hours.

• In spite of challenges from downsizing, a Willamette Valley high-tech company reduced electricity use by nine percent or approximately 2.75 million kilowatt hours. The energy team identified hundreds of projects to implement and monitored progress with a scorecard tracking tool. Some of the biggest savings came from no-cost and low-cost improvements such as improved HVAC scheduling and removing unnecessary lights.

Oregon businesses can't afford to leave savings like these on the table. While the recession has resulted in limited capital investments, it’s promising to discover that a lot can be done with little or no cost. Industrial businesses are some of the biggest economic drivers in Oregon. Giving them the knowledge and tools they need to save energy and money does more than just support their businesses. It supports the entire state.

Kim Crossman is the senior industrial sector manager for Energy Trust of Oregon.