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Southwest Energy Efficiency Project Southwest Energy Efficiency Project

Energy Efficiency Opportunities

One of the first steps towards reducing energy consumption at your facility is to analyze annual energy consumption and costs, creating a breakdown such as the one shown in the figure to the right. This breakdown will highlight areas on which to focus the most efforts to identify energy efficiency improvements.

Some opportunities to save energy are specific to your type of industry, and some apply to many sectors, such as those described in the following sections:

INDUSTRIAL ENERGY USE SNAPSHOT

Industrial Energy Use Graph click for larger image

The breakdown of energy consumption in industrial facilities varies considerably by industry type. A plant that produces frozen vegetables uses large amounts of electrical energy for refrigeration, while a plant that heat-treats metal uses lots of natural gas to fire furnaces.

The figure above shows the breakdown of energy consumption by end-use, for all industrial sectors combined, and indicates a breakdown for a “typical” industrial facility in the U.S.

Source: U.S. EIA, Manufacturing Energy Consumption Survey, 2006