Controlling cost and reducing footprint through energy efficiency projects
“Consumption Workshop” Helps Water Treatment Company Save $1.8 Million in Energy Costs
Learn how Summit Energy led a water treatment and processing company to $1.8 million in energy cost reduction, plus significant tax refunds and tax avoidance. In addition, the energy efficiency projects directly supported the company’s goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
A Strategic Approach Saves Energy without Breaking the Budget: Most companies have been down this road before: Plant personnel identify energy-savings projects, but the projects require major capital investments. So, the plant teams turn to corporate for funding, only to find that the coffers are empty and savings opportunities are delayed or discarded. It is a frustrating experience for talented plant teams, and, ultimately, it prevents the company from operating as efficiently as possible. This situation can be overcome.
SITUATION
Like many companies its size, a global company in the water treatment and process improvement sector, was not operating as efficiently as possible. Even though plant personnel eagerly sought executive support for key projects to improve energy efficiency, the company did not have a streamlined process for evaluating and leveraging energy savings opportunities across its many facilities. To create a strategic and efficient process for discovering and quantifying these opportunities, Summit Energy recommended that its client take advantage of Summit’s Consumption Workshop.
LEADERSHIP
The Consumption Workshop helps companies identify energy savings opportunities, serving as a forum for plant personnel to engage and collaborate with corporate leaders. The proprietary process, designed by Summit, provides a systematic approach that captures verifiable data to support recommendations and fully leverages the innovation and experience at the site level. Participants from eight of the company’s facilities participated in the workshop, as well as the company’s division vice president.
RESULTS
Through the course of the Consumption Workshop process, the water treatment company identified $1.8 million in energy cost savings, nearly 10% of its total spend, across a number of operational areas such as compressed air, heat recovery and demand control. This process of closely examining energy usage data even led, indirectly, to the discovery of $140,000 in tax refunds for the sites and $90,000 a year in annual tax avoidances.
In addition to the direct financial results, the company found value in incorporating these projects into the organization’s overall sustainability efforts. One corporate staff member commented that the Consumption Workshop “provided direct support for our company’s goals to bring about absolute reductions in our greenhouse gas levels.”
