Energy Demand Solutions

Energy Demand Solutions

The following is a brief overview of energy demand solutions undertaken by members of The Pew Center's Business Environmental Leadership Council (BELC).

For more information on each of these companies efforts to address climate change, please see the Businesses Leading The Way section of this Web site.

ABB

• ABB provides drives, motors, generators, and power electronics designed for the greatest possible efficiency.
  
  
• ABB uses life-cycle assessment studies to determine product environmental impacts, including energy use and CO2 emissions.
  
  
• ABB evaluates and reports annually on the environmental performance of its products. An important component of these reports is a life-cycle analysis of the products, including the inputs and outputs of CO₂, SF₆, CFCs, and energy.
  
  
• ABB has embarked on a project to develop environmental product declarations for all its major products and services. Environmental product declarations describe the environmental performance of a product, system, or service over its lifetime.

Air Products and Chemicals

• Air Products and Chemicals’ efficiency engineers constantly monitor the performance of their major energy-intensive operations. In 2002, those engineers completed numerous global energy efficiency projects resulting in an estimated 26 MW of power savings; this is equivalent to the power consumed by 18,500 average homes annually and equivalent to avoiding 174,000 tons of CO₂ emissions.
  
  
• Air Products works closely with its energy suppliers to make the most efficient use of their generation facilities to help them minimize their greenhouse (GHG) emissions. Air Products matches its energy needs to that of the energy supplier by shutting down production at times of peak demand and increasing production at other times. Such efforts contribute to "demand loading," a practice in which energy suppliers try to optimize the generational efficiency of a power plant by ensuring that it runs as close as possible to the point of maximum efficiency.
  
  
• Air Products is working with the DOE’s Vision 21 Program and other business partners on the development of Ion Transport Membrane (ITM) Oxygen technology. Many emerging energy-production technologies, environmental cleanup technologies and industrial processes would benefit from using oxygen in place of air.
  
  
• Air Products and Chemicals and its partners were selected by the DOE Industries of the Future (IOF) Best Practices Program to demonstrate the potential for using CO₂ to manufacture polyurethane. In addition to using less energy, the new process will be cleaner, significantly reduce the environmental impact of making the foam, and reduce the net release of CO₂.

Alcoa

• Alcoa has reduced the electricity required to produce a ton of aluminum by 7.5% percent over the last 20 years.
  
  
• Alcoa supplies lightweight, recyclable materials for motor vehicle assembly; each kilogram of aluminum that replaces higher density materials provides the potential to save 20 kilograms of CO₂e emissions via better fuel economy and recyclability.

American Electric Power

• AEP is implementing energy efficiency plans to offset 10 percent of the annual energy demand growth in its Texas service territory.
  
  
• In 2003 alone, AEP invested over $8 million to reduce more than 47 million kWh by installing energy efficiency measures in customers’ homes and businesses. AEP plans to increase its level of investment in energy efficiency over the next three years. Total investment over that time period will exceed $43 million, achieving over 247 million kWh of energy efficiency gains.
  

Baxter

• Baxter’s corporate energy management group performs energy reviews of the company’s manufacturing facilities, maintains energy use standards, and researches and communicates best practices in energy conservation. In 2002 alone, these efforts resulted in approximately $4.3 million in reduced energy costs, and Baxter estimates that energy-efficiency initiatives between 1996 and 2002 resulted in $28 million in annual savings in 2002. In 2002, Baxter achieved a 3 percent reduction in energy consumption per unit of production value while its output increased 7 percent.
  
  
• Baxter holds a worldwide energy conference every two years to share the latest energy conservation technologies and efforts, and to recognize individuals and plants for their leadership and accomplishments in saving energy.
  

CH2M HILL

• CH2M HILL conducted an inventory of energy consumption by over 100 office spaces that the company occupies as a tenant in the United States and Canada. The findings will be used to set energy conservation goals in 2004. The company’s Denver-area employees moved into a new corporate campus, which was designed using the LEED^TM green building system guidelines to reduce energy consumption by 24 percent compared to conventional commercial office buildings.

Cummins Inc.

• Cummins has implemented energy conservation efforts in several of its facilities. Corporate headquarters and other major facilities have agreed to cut electricity consumption by 6 MW on peak demand days. Other facilities have installed air compressor controls and high-efficiency lighting, and have begun using hot water from engine testing to melt snow, reducing the need for electric resistance wiring.
  

Deutsche Telekom

• Deutsche Telekom achieved the greatest energy efficiency gains in 2002 from optimizing the operation of building technology for switching and transmission technology. By using the waste process heat generated in the operation of IT technology, Deutsche Telekom was able to replace conventional heating systems (e.g. electrical and oil-gas heating systems) in smaller technical buildings. Efficiency gains were also achieved by optimizing air conditioning systems.
  
  
• Additional energy efficiency gains were also achieved through the deactivation of digital switching equipment modules that were no longer required. These and other measures contributed to both an increase in energy efficiency and to an impressive reduction in energy consumption of 49.57 GWh in 2002 for T-Com. They have also enabled an emissions reduction of 26,300 tons of CO₂.
  
  
• Deutsche Telekom also uses energy optimization teams at its technical branch offices with the goal to develop, analyze, evaluate and implement energy optimization measures. These teams have been assigned the task of operating a wide range of technology and equipment as efficiently as possible, from complex heating and air conditioning systems, to communications technology, to the energy-related optimization of office workstations.
  

DTE Energy

• DTE Energy works with customers to find ways they can help protect the environment by using energy wisely. DTE Energy Partnership has a staff of more than 40 energy engineers that work with businesses to increase efficiency.

Dupont

• DuPont used seven percent less total energy in 2004 than it did in 1990, despite an almost 30 percent increase in production. Compared to a linear increase in energy with production, this achievement has resulted in $2 billion in cumulative energy savings.
  
• DuPont Tyvek housewrap improves the energy efficiency of buildings, with energy savings in the first year of use alone some 10-20 times the energy required to produce the product.
  
• DuPont’ engineering polymers in applications like intake manifolds help to safely reduce the weight of motor vehicles and improve their fuel efficiency.

Entergy

• Entergy, under its commitment to stabilize power plant CO₂ emissions, has implemented 44 internal GHG reduction programs as of December 2003 that will achieve a projected 1 million tons of CO₂ equivalent reduction by 2005. Several of these projects focus on using less fuel to generate electricity at power plants: two projects allow generating units to operate on less power when in stand-by mode, while two other projects are installing advanced controls to regulate the combustion processes in selected plant boilers. These projects are dedicated to improving the efficiency and capacity factor of Entergy’s cleanest and lowest emitting fossil, nuclear, and renewable electric generating units.
  

Exelon

• Exelon Energy Delivery’s Smart Returns Load Reduction Programs
  
  
  • ComEd’s 10 Smart Returns products represent one of the largest, most successful loads response portfolios in the United States. The programs provide customers with a financial incentive to curtail use, while benefiting the community and the environment through a lower, more stable load. The more customers curtail use, the more financial incentives they can potentially earn.
    
  • From single-family residential homes to large steel mills, the Smart Returns products provide opportunities for almost every customer to participate. ComEd works closely with large commercial, institutional and industrial customers to customize curtailment plans and maximize energy efficiency opportunities. On hot summer days, ComEd’s load response programs can contribute a 1,000-MW reduction to system peak loads.
    
  • PECO’s Smart Returns program has three products, and customers may participate in any or all. The first, active load management (ALM), is a program in which participating customers guarantee that they will reduce their energy consumption within one hour of PECO’s request. This emergency program is designed to respond to events that are triggered within the PJM Interconnection, a regional transmission organization. During 2004, PECO gained 26 MW of new ALM customer load, in addition to the existing 74 MW under contract.
    
  • Under the second Smart Returns program, voluntary load reduction, customers receive a one-hour notification to curtail energy consumption and share in a percentage of PECO’s energy cost savings. PECO had 123 MW under this program for 2004.
    
  • Finally, PJM’s voluntary Economic and Emergency Load Response Programs provide an additional Smart Returns choice for potential load response customers. During 2004, PECO signed up more than 200 MW.
    
• EED internal energy efficiency initiative
  
  
  • The Exelon Environmental Strategy Energy Efficiency Team was charged with the goals of improving energy efficiency at EED facilities by 3 percent annually from 2003–2007 and developing recommendations for expanding the program to other Exelon facilities. The team, which supports 74 EED facilities and 8,200 employees, implemented a broad strategy that includes a budget for collateral materials, facility benchmarking and energy audits, efficiency retrofits and a multiyear communications plan with internal articles, posters and stickers to remind employees to turn off computers and lights when not in use.
    
  • For 2004, EED reduced energy consumption by 7 million kilowatt hours (kWh) compared to the 2002 baseline. Normalizing the data based on 30-year averages and the current year heating and cooling degree-days resulted in an improvement of 4 percent in 2003 and 3.8 percent in 2004, thus exceeding the goal each year.
    
  • Currently, there is a focus within Exelon Nuclear to identify energy efficiency opportunities.
    
• Green corporate headquarters
  
  
  • In 2004, Exelon’s Real Estate and Facilities business unit initiated the consolidation of our three downtown Chicago locations into a single flagship headquarters. We believe that greater cross-collaboration between functions can achieve synergies that will improve productivity. The new headquarters will contribute toward reducing our real estate costs.
    
  • We will demonstrate our environmental stewardship by incorporating sustainable design and building practices into the headquarters’ design. The U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program defines the parameters for building and operating new and existing buildings to be more environmentally friendly. In determining whether Exelon could participate in the LEED program without incurring an unreasonable cost premium, we recognized that the building and design marketplace has evolved to a point where the new headquarters can incorporate many established and forward-thinking elements of sustainable design and construction. The costs associated with sustainable design are now on a par with typical building materials and processes. We are confident that the new headquarters will be an inviting, innovative and practical space for our employees and visitors for years to come.
    
• EED support of Chicago Green City goal
  
  
  • The Exelon Marketing Technical Services (MTS) team actively supports Chicago’s efforts to make the city the greenest community in the United States. Exelon’s support ranges from energy efficiency work in city facilities to efficiency improvements in industrial facilities and sustainable design outreach.
    
  • Retrofits in city facilities. In 2004, MTS conducted a benchmark study evaluating energy efficiency opportunities such as lighting retrofits and solar domestic water heating for the city’s firehouses. Exelon also completed lighting retrofits at several Chicago Transit Authority and City Colleges of Chicago facilities, including bus garages, repair shops, classrooms, laboratories, gymnasiums and swimming pools. In aggregate, the projects saved more than 1,500 kW in installed lighting load, 9.6 million kWh in annual electricity consumption and 20.5 million pounds of CO2 emissions.
    
  • Saving energy, avoiding emissions and improving Chicago’s economy. In conjunction with the University of Illinois and the city’s Department of Environment, MTS supports and coordinates Chicago’s Industrial Rebuild Program targeted to specific industrial segments. In 2004, ComEd completed assessments of chemical manufacturers and continued assessments of confectionery companies. These efforts identified potential annual savings of 3.7 million kWh and 14.5 million cubic feet of water and avoidance of 5.5 million pounds of CO2 emissions.
    
  • Sustainable design. Through creation of a Chicago Standard, the city is committed to LEED certification for all new buildings. ComEd is providing technical support for operating efficiency, maintenance practices and training of building staff. ComEd is also commissioning four new Chicago Public Schools.

Hewlett-Packard

• HP participates in the US EPA’s ENERGY STAR^® Program, and more than 300 of its products are ENERGY STAR^® qualified.
  
  
• HP uses “Instant On” technology in many of its laser-jet printers, allowing them to save energy from immediately shifting from active printing to a power saving “sleep mode,” without sacrificing printer reliability or the time needed to start the next job.
  
  
• HP is developing “all-in-one” products that combine several typical office appliances into one machine, saving up to forty percent in energy and materials.
  
  
• HP has implemented energy-saving measures at many of its own facilities. These measures include installing automated and centralized control systems to minimize energy consumption and maximize efficiency, establishing new temperature set-points, reducing lighting, encouraging employees to turn off lights, computers, and other appliances when not in use, and educating employees about energy conservation. At its Roseville technology campus in California, the percentage of computers left on after work dropped from 33 percent to 8 percent in one year.

IBM

• IBM achieved a 6.1 percent reduction in total conventional energy use through energy efficiency and conservation measures and through the procurement of renewables. This corresponds to an approximate reduction of 173,500 tons of CO₂ at a cost savings of $17.3 million.
  
  
• During 1990 to 2002, IBM’s energy conservation measures resulted in a savings of 12.8 billion kWh of electricity—avoiding approximately 7.8 million tons of CO₂ and saving the company $729 million dollars in reduced energy costs.
  
  
• IBM sets targets for product efficiency for a wide range of products. One-hundred percent of new IBM personal computers, monitors, and printer office models introduced from 2001 through 2003 met the ENERGY STAR^® criteria. Continued focus on reducing non-productive standby power ("off" mode for those products having power management) has resulted in AC adaptors offered with IBM's ThinkPads since 2001 using less than 1 watt in standby, with the majority using less than 0.6 watts.

Intel

• Intel, working closely with ENERGY STAR^® implemented power management on 65,000 laptop displays and 45,000 desktop monitors worldwide. This initiative will save about 9,650,000 kWh over the next year, or enough electricity to light 11,000 U.S. homes for one month. At $0.05 per kWh, Intel will realize an annual savings of $482,000.
  
• Intel provides enabling technology for electronics manufacturers to build products that meet or exceed the ENERGY STAR^® standard. For example, Intel’s Instantly Available PC allows PCs to go to under 5 watts "sleep mode" with wake up in under 5 seconds. From 2002 to 2010, these savings will prevent 159 metric tons of CO₂ emissions.

Interface Inc.

• Interface’s improved efficiencies and conservation efforts have reduced the total energy required to manufacture carpet per unit of production by 36 percent since 1996, and total energy required to manufacture a linear yard of fabric is down 19 percent since 1996.

Lockheed Martin

• Over 90 percent of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions at Lockheed Martin derive from energy use. Accordingly, in 2002 the company established an Energy Program within the corporate EESH organization that sets energy management policy, and tracks progress in improving energy efficiency and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The Energy Program Manager works closely with ESH and facility operations managers across the corporation to promote energy efficiency through employee education, improved maintenance practices, and capital investments. Through the Energy Program, Lockheed Martin has invested over $14 million since 2002 in capital improvements specifically targeted at increasing energy efficiency and lowering greenhouse gas emissions at our operating units.

Ontario Power Generation

• Ontario Power Generation helps customers save energy in their own homes by replacing inefficient appliances, retrofitting lighting, and installing weatherization measures.
  
  
• Through its Energy Efficiency Program, Ontario Power Generation has achieved over 2,130 GWh per year in energy savings. Since 1994, OPG has undertaken over 300 thermal conversion efficiency and electrical efficiency projects, saving approximately the amount of energy consumed in a year by a city of 80,000 people.
  
  
• OPG has introduced a GreenSaver program to encourage its employees to apply energy efficiency measures at home. OPG gives information sessions on the benefits of home audits for energy conservation.
  

PG&E Corporation

• PG&E Corporation’s utility, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, reduced overall energy use in 2002 at 88 of its California facilities by almost 24 percent compared with 1998 baseline energy usage levels through energy efficiency and conservation. This resulted in savings of almost 28 gigawatt-hours of electricity, and prevented approximately 7,000 tons of CO₂ from being emitted to the atmosphere.
  
  
• Since 1990, Pacific Gas and Electric Company's customer energy efficiency programs have cumulatively saved more than 138 million MWh of electricity (cumulative 36 million to 80 million tons of CO₂ emissions avoided, depending on whether a base or peak load emission factor is used). Customer energy savings realized in 2002 were approximately 4.9 million MWh of electricity and 160 million therms of natural gas—enough to power approximately 740,000 homes for a year. The emissions avoided from these actions alone totaled approximately 2.8 million tons of CO₂.
  

Rio Tinto

• Rio Tinto and the Australian Government announced the formation in 2002 of the Rio Tinto Foundation for a Sustainable Minerals Industry, a research and technical development partnership to jointly fund sustainable minerals industry programs, including projects related to energy efficiency and greenhouse gas sequestration.

Rohm and Haas

• Rohm and Haas's largest facility, in Deer Park, Texas, has maintained an aggressive energy management effort and continuously reduced its energy consumption each year since 1997. Energy consumption per pound of product at the site was 26.6 percent lower in 2003 than 1996, eliminating 76,700 tons per year of CO₂ and 1,200 tons per year of NO_x emissions.
  
  
• In 1999, the company began engaging its other production facilities in a parallel effort. In 2001 a corporate-wide metrics system was installed to track energy usage on a monthly basis, and a formal goal of year on year reductions (1 percent per pound of product) was implemented. Various efforts at the company's other facilities have included energy assessments, best practice implementation, and process improvements.
  
  
• Rohm and Haas’s energy-saving products include its DURAPLUS™ roofing system, made with Rhoplex® Emulsion Polymers for reflective roof coatings that can be applied to rubberized roofs to increase the roofing material’s life span while lowering the solar radiation to the roof; and SEA-NINE® 211, a biodegradable antifouling agent that prevents biological build-up on large ocean-going vessels, thereby reducing the ship’s drag and energy consumption.
  
  

Royal Dutch/Shell

• Royal Dutch/Shell is utilizing an in-house developed energy-efficiency program to support its 5-year energy-efficiency targets. The program, operated through Shell Global Solutions and known as Energise, helps facilities identify, implement, and sustain energy efficiency projects.

SC Johnson

• SC Johnson reduced volume and temperatures of aerosol water baths, which helped to reduce water bath energy use by 50 percent with no decrease in production quality at its Waxdale aerosol production facility.

Toyota

TransAlta

• TransAlta improved its energy efficiency by an estimated 3 to 5 percent by upgrading turbines, cooling towers, advanced control systems, boilers, and heat exchangers.

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To view the energy solutions of all BELC members, visit What's Being Done in the Business Community section of this site.