Boston companies explore industrial energy efficiencies

Peering inside one of his company’s products, Mitch Tyson sees more than just a mesmerizing blue cloud of electrons. He also sees the type of innovation needed to cut energy use by energy-hungry industrial companies.

Advanced Electron Beams Inc., based in Wilmington, is one of several local companies helping manufacturers and other industrial customers to substantially reduce their energy needs. The firm’s electron emitter is currently being used to sterilize food and beverage packaging and has a wide range of other potential applications that could save energy for industry, said Tyson, the company’s CEO.

Yet despite the size of the market — industrial accounts for more than one-third of energy use in the United States — there’s been a lack of emphasis on efficiency for industry.

“This is the sector in which we’ve seen the least activity in the energy-efficiency arena,” said Neal Elliott, director of the industrial program at the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, a D.C.-based nonprofit.

Among the reasons: Energy use in industrial facilities is much more complex and site-specific than in commercial and residential settings, Elliott said.

Industrial companies also make upgrades to their equipment and facilities infrequently, spending years planning the changes, he said. Often, government programs meant to boost industrial energy efficiency don’t last long enough to accommodate that planning process, Elliott said.

Tyson said he’s seen this phenomenon as his company has sought to persuade equipment makers to replace their thermal or chemical sterilization units with an electron emitter.

“What we’re doing is, we’re getting mature companies and mature industries to innovate in their manufacturing process,” he said. “That’s not something they do very fast.”

Read more in the Boston Business Journal.