Rational energy behavior in industrial companies
The project will expand on a proved concept for energy conservation in large kitchens, combining precise measuring with tailormade advice on behavior change, and develop this concept into a more generic concept that can be offered to a wide range of industrial companies.
Industrial production companies accounted for 13% of Denmark's total energy consumption in 2018. Behavior plays a significant role for energy consumption and energy conserving behavior in industrial production companies represents a large untapped contribution to achieving the national 70% climate target. It is often difficult for industrial companies to develop an overview of the potential for energy conservation and it can be costly for them to initiate without experience and the equipment for measuring energy consumption in detail. The industrial company, on the other hand, has in-depth knowledge of their production processes and in combination with tailored energy consultancy, the energy conservation potential can be realized. The project will expand on a proved concept for energy conservation in large kitchens, combining precise measuring with tailormade advice on behavior change, and develop this concept into a more generic concept that can be offered to a wide range of industrial companies.
The project aims to adapt an existing behavioural concept for industrial companies that combines detailed energy monitoring with energy consulting. The concept has been tested on two test companies in the plastics industry.
Due to corona restrictions, the project has been suspended for a longer period. Through the goodwill of several parties, it has been possible to complete the project and adapt the behavioural concept to industrial companies. Adaptations include customization of data loggers, software, test periods, approaches, etc.
The tested concept consists of several phases: Start-up, setup of meters, baseline measurement, workshop, implementation of measures, and documentation of the effect of the measures, and all phases have proven their justification.
The project has confirmed that there are large electricity savings to be made from changed behaviour in industrial companies, but it has been a challenge to document these. External factors such as changes in outdoor temperature and changes in production easily turns the calculation of effects into a very complicated exercise.
In several cases it has been possible to find solutions to the challenges: In one of the two test-case companies, a 5% efficiency kWh / ton produced plastic can be documented in one of their locations, and there is documentation for a clear improvement of the low-end consumption / idle consumption of compressed air at another location. These effects have been achieved without significant investment on the part of the company.
In addition, the device-close energy monitoring has provided important new knowledge on electricity consumption in the companies, and it has, among other things, identified some observation points that the companies can use in their ongoing production optimizations, maintenance and replacements in the future.
In the future, FlexMeter and DEM will continue to work with industrial companies. The adapted concept, which combines energy monitoring with a behavioral concept, will benefit from being considered in a longer time frame than the existing old concept, for example as a tool within the energy managementframework, in which many industrial companies are certified.
The tests carried out in this project have shown that there is a big difference in electricity consumption and what measures can be implemented in plastic industries, and that is a challenge for using the concept in isolation. But as part of e.g. advice within energy management, the concept makes very good sense due to the detailed new knowledge acquired about the actual energy consumption – and the behavioral savings is just an extra bonus.
In addition, FlexMeter offers energy monitoring and live view as a separate service. In the plastics industry, it especially makes sense to log extruders, refrigeration, compressed air and ventilation as a supplement to the information the company can retrieve from elnet.dk’s datahub service.
Key figures
Category
Participants
| Partner | Subsidy | Auto financing |
|---|---|---|
| FlexMeter |
