Energy management

Best practices for implementing an energy project

Decarbonation is a major issue in industry today. It is necessary to define a clear strategy to decarbonize, whether it concerns the emissions linked to your core business, the manufacturing of your products, and of course the direct consumption of fossil fuels in your factories. The French national low-carbon strategy (SNBC)  places energy efficiency as one of the first levers that can be activated to reduce your industrial carbon footprint. Less energy consumption for the same industrial output is already less CO₂ emissions. In this article, discover the best practices to implement your energy project in your plant.

What are the 3 main levers to reduce direct environmental impacts in the industry?

industry challenges

  1. Energy performance:this refers to the reduction of energy consumption.
  2. Integration of renewable energy: for example, by replacing fossil fuels with biomass, or by producing electricity with photovoltaic panels.
  3. The implementation of sustainable contracts: for example by purchasing renewable energy with Power Purchase Agreements (PPA), which are commitments to purchase specific renewable energy over long periods of time.

 

How do you implement an energy performance project?

pyramid priorities

1. Define your Energy Referent

First of all, motivation is not enough; you have to proceed with method to enrich your CSR approach.

 

It is recommended to nominate an energy referent in your company. This person will be in charge of this long-term project in a continuous improvement process. He or she will give direction to the project, its objectives, its means and its roadmap.

 

It is also necessary to set up a solid and continuous training for this energy consultant.

 

In terms of profile, they are often employees who are familiar with the processes and machines (e.g. operating departments, general resources, services), and have a strong interest in energy. However, the role of the energy referent is expanding and he or she should include a vision of the industrial master plan and data management in his or her scope.

 

2. Define your action plan based on an energy audit

The energy performance action plan is usually the result of an energy audit (mandatory for companies with more than 250 employees, or a turnover of more than 50 M€ and a balance sheet of more than 43 M€, unless ISO 50 001 certification is in progress). The audit allows to prioritize the actions, to prioritize them in time, and to define a return on investment time.

 

There are 2 types of energy performance actions:

  1. Waste prevention: This is all about implementing best practices with little or no investment in equipment. This type of action requires energy monitoring and daily management, for example with energy management software such as Energiency.
  2. Anticipation of new investments: opportunities for energy optimization may appear when replacing machines or when implementing new subsidies, as with the current France Relance recovery plan. It is necessary to prepare these investments in advance, which is also the role of the energy audit. The latter can recommend a metering plan with basic monitoring means for the Energy Referent.

 

3. Define your energy metering plan and its granularity

The first step of the energy management is to monitor regularly the consumption from the general meters and to have access to the load curve on electricity to know its consumption.

 

Then, when you start to have more important energy bills, you set up an energy sub-metering plan.

 

Submetering allows:

  1. To track Significant Energy Uses, as defined by the ISO 50001 standard. The objective is to monitor the largest consumption items, which represent 80% of the plant or workshop consumption, because they represent the largest possible energy gain or critical uses and significant drifts (e.g.: valve that remains open).
  2. To integrate production data and create ratios (e.g. kWh consumed per ton of products manufactured in a workshop). The objective is to find, in the Energy Management System and the data storage of companies, production data that potentially influence energy, and to cross-reference energy consumption with these production data.
  3. To build the basis of the technical architecture of the metering plan: meters that communicate in real time, no manual readings, wireless technology, coupling with the company's data warehouse, maximizing the life of the sensors, etc.

 

4. Optimize your data management to realize gains

When you are an industrial SME and you only have one meter with the load curve on electricity, you can already achieve great things. There are few machines and it is easy to visualize and understand energy consumption.

 

On bigger sites, like Naval Group in Nantes-Indret (France), a sub-metering plan is needed.

 

Thanks to AI, we can also be proactive and anticipate energy consumption, and no longer just explain past events. AI is a mature technology for identifying energy savings. It allows to create digital twins and to detect in real time the gap between real consumption and digital models of best consumption practices, on specific series.

 

Data is also an essential lever for initiating a process with production teams. Energy referents sometimes find it difficult to raise awareness among operational teams, who have their own industrial performance and profitability objectives. However, data provides an objective basis for discussion, a common language and enables the identification of accessible benefits on utilities (compressed air, lighting, etc.).

 

Like Naval Group, are you ready to step up to the next level to improve energy efficiency in your plants? We are at your disposal to study your project before implementing concrete actions, based on AI and HI, to identify new sources of energy savings.

 

 

How Naval Group's Nantes plant successfully made the energy shift to Industry 4.0 thanks to the artificial intelligence of Energiency?
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