Industrial Energy Program Surpasses Expectations

by | Feb 2, 2012

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A program to save energy at industrial facilities in the Pacific Northwest produced more than 28 average MW in verified energy savings in fiscal year 2011, according to program partner Cascade Energy.

The savings found through the Bonneville Power Administration’s Energy Smart Industrial (ESI) program far surpass expectations. BPA industrial sector lead Jennifer Eskil said the administration had targeted 15 aMW in fiscal year 2011. The actual savings of 28 aMW were triple the savings that BPA found annually before launching the ESI program in late 2009, according to Cascade president Marcus Wilcox.

In 2010, the program met expectations of 12 aMW of savings. Public utilities in the Pacific Northwest serve more than 2,400 MW of industrial load each year.

The ESI program works with industrial facilities in a variety of market segments, including pulp and paper, wood products, food processing, high tech, water/wastewater and mining. Through ESI, utilities can participate in energy project manager co-funding, which increases end user management and engineering efforts devoted to electrical energy projects; track and tune projects, which target operations and maintenance energy savings; and high-performance energy management, which offers coaching and training to end users for continuous energy improvement, similar to ISO 50001.

Since its launch, 104 of 116 BPA-affiliated utilities with industrial load have opted into ESI, representing an 89 percent sign-up rate and nearly 99 percent of the Pacific Northwest’s total industrial load. In the first two years of the program, 485 custom energy projects were initiated.

Wilcox attributed the program’s achievements to its diverse offerings, its success in creating awareness among utilities and customers, and its provision of a single point of contact to help participants develop and manage energy savings projects.

According to the Department of Energy’s 2011 Strategic Sustainability Performance Plan, between FY 2001 and FY 2010, the BPA completed energy efficiency projects with 21 federal agencies in the Pacific Northwest, resulting in electrical savings of more than 170 million kWh per year. These projects also generated gas, steam and water savings.

BPA also led the Grand Coulee Dam lighting retrofit project, which retrofitted or replaced more than 10,000 fixtures, raising the Dam’s generating capacity by nearly 9 million kWh per year.

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