US CEEM Members Showcase SEP Pilot Certifications at the 21st Industrial Energy Technology Conference

• First row, left to right: Paul Scheihing, DOE; Mark Krawczyk, Freescale Semi-conductor; Dave Hake, Dow Chemical; Kathey Ferland, Texas IOF; Gary Chastain, Owens Corning; Dub Taylor, SECO.  Second row, left to right:  Larry Hamilton, Dow Chemical; Patricio Cueva, CCP; and Robert Auerback, DEKRA

On May 18, 2011, several presentations showcasing the Superior Energy Performance (SEP) pilots, including some by members of the U.S. Council for Energy Efficient Manufacturing (U.S. CEEM), were made at the Industrial Energy Technologies Conference (IETC) in New Orleans, Louisiana. Following an overview of SEP by Paul Scheihing of the U.S. Department of Energy, three U.S. CEEM members discussed various aspects of how SEP has begun to be implemented in the U.S. industrial sector. The presentations underscored the value of energy management aligned with a single standard, such as the forthcoming ISO 50001 Standard, lessons learned from the first pilot demonstrations in Texas, the current round of SEP demonstrations and one company’s experience from participating in SEP.

HP: Energy Management is Good for Business

According to Kenneth Hamilton, Director of Energy and Sustainability Services, HP is improving its energy efficiency, both in its corporate facilities and across its supply chains. In fact, Hamilton pointed out that HP’s supply chains account for approximately 95% of the energy required to make its products.

Hamilton views the forthcoming ISO 50001 Energy Management Standard as the best way to develop a consistent approach towards energy management within the company and across their supply chain, much of which is outside the U.S. For this reason, HP has been active in the development of ISO 50001 through its participation in ISO PC 242 U.S. CEEM since 2009. Due to HP’s aggressive corporate energy intensity reduction goal of 20% over 8 years, deployment of the ISO 50001 Standard will be an important step to enhancing proactive energy management. ISO 50001 will also enable HP to achieve SEP certification, which they intend to pursue.

Success of the Texas Pilots

SEP was first piloted in four industrial plants in the state of Texas beginning in 2008 and was wrapped up by February 2011. The four companies involved and their respective plants include: Cook Composites and Polymers’ Houston plant, Freescale Semiconductor, Inc.’s Oak Hill plant, Owens Corning’s Waxahachie plant and The Dow Chemical Company Texas City site, which includes two plants. Kathey Ferland, the Project Manager for Texas Industries of the Future, discussed the pilot project results for Cook Composites & Polymers (CCP), Freescale Semiconductor and Owens Corning.

These three plants represent a diversity of plant size, energy use and operations. CCP was the smallest plant in the pilot, using slightly more than 100,000 MMBtu/year, and had just started on energy management. During its pilot, CCP made improvements to its steam and process heating systems and achieved a 14.9% reduction in energy intensity, which earned CCP the Gold-level SEP certification. In addition to conforming with the ANSI: MSE 2008 Energy Management Standard, personnel at CCP’s Houston plant tested the ASME system assessment standards for steam and process heating systems.

Freescale Semiconductor began the SEP pilot consuming approximately 682,000 MMBtu/year in its Oak Hill plant. The Oak Hill plant was the first 200 micron semiconductor facility in the world. One of the important findings was that in the 100,000 ft2 fabrication room 34% of the energy was used by the fabrication tools, which operated continuously 24 hours per day. In addition to implementing the energy management standard, during the pilot project plant staff developed a method for shutting down fabrication tools when not in use. This led to a 6.5% energy intensity reduction for the Oak Hill plant, earning the Silver certification. The Oak Hill staff now considers energy management as “a way of doing business.”

Lastly, Kathey Ferland discussed the Owens Corning Waxahachie plant, which consumed more than 1 trillion Btu/year. The Waxahachie plant, already ISO 9001 certified, used that management system as the basis for its energy management system implementation. Owens Corning quickly set up their energy management plan, team and goals and expanded its energy program to address energy procurement. The Waxahachie plant achieved an energy intensity reduction of 9.6%, earning it the Silver certification level.

Some important conclusions that Ferland relayed were that communications within plants was critical, that energy savings could be achieved even during periods of economic downturns and that small to medium sized plants can benefit from the SEP process.

Expanding the SEP Pilot Demonstrations Across the US

Jessica Brown, from the Georgia Institute of Technology’s (GIT) Enterprise Innovation Institute, gave an overview of the current SEP pilot phase. Currently there are 23 SEP pilots in several U.S. regions to refine the program while expanding its geographic and sectoral reach.  Based on the experience with the first round of Texas pilots, candidate plants were selected based on a demonstrated commitment to energy efficiency, including participation in an energy efficiency program, presence of existing management systems and a willingness to allocate resources and a commitment to SEP. These characteristics were found to facilitate the likelihood that plants could achieve SEP certification.

Jessica also discussed the EnPi tool being used during the pilot demonstrations. The EnPi tool, developed by GIT, is a linear regression tool that incorporates all the factors that affect energy use and provides a precise insight into the energy intensity of a given industrial plant or process. This tool is being refined, but has already been valuable in helping the pilot plants understand where to look for energy efficiency opportunities.

Dow Chemical: Building on Success

The final speaker, Tom Wood of the Dow Chemical Company, discussed the Texas pilots at Dow’s Texas City complex, where SEP was piloted in two separate plants: the Isopropanol and Energy Systems plants. For Dow, the decision to pilot SEP aligned closely with its longstanding corporate energy intensity reduction goals. From 1994 to 2010, Dow has saved 1,800 trillion Btu, which is the energy equivalent to powering all residential buildings throughout California for more than one and a half years. The company’s energy efficiency efforts have prevented more than 95 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, from entering the atmosphere and have contributed cost savings of $9.4 billion.  Dow continues to seek further reductions in energy intensity. The company decided to participate in the SEP pilots, not only to potentially improve its own energy management, but to help develop the program and articulate the needs of industry.

While the two pilots required much time and effort due to their size and complexity, the plant personnel were able to integrate the energy management standard with their internal energy reporting system. Although both plants possessed ongoing energy efficiency programs they realized they could leverage current efficiency projects with newly identified energy efficiency opportunities to achieve certification under the program’s performance pathway. Opportunities were identified and implemented with respect to system controls, compressed air systems and distillation columns. As a result, the Isopropanol plant saved 190,000 MMBtu/year. This reduced its energy intensity by 17.1% and earned a SEP Platinum-level certification. The Energy Systems plant achieved the Silver-level certification with an energy intensity reduction of 8.1%, which saved approximately 4 trillion Btu/year. The results of these SEP demonstrations are being shared within Dow to identify opportunities for replication across other plants.