Enspi's Energy Ladder - Actionable Energy Management Strategies for Mid-Size Manufacturers
In today’s competitive manufacturing landscape, reducing operational costs while maintaining high efficiency is crucial. One way to do this is to manage your energy use more effectively. But for mid-sized manufacturers, this is often easier said than done. Less than a third of manufacturing companies today are using energy to their strategic advantage. Why? Because managing energy is still too expensive and complex. Implementing a full-scale energy strategy takes time and resources, two assets in short supply for most manufacturers. The good news is, there are simple ways even a smaller manufacturer can be more strategic with their energy use--reducing costs, carbon emissions and delivering tangible benefit to the triple bottom line.
The Energy Ladder Approach
Think of your energy strategy as a ladder. Each rung of the ladder moves you further up until you reach the top of the ladder, where you’ll have a bird’s eye view of your operations and energy use as well as access to new revenue generation opportunities. The important thing about the laddered approach is that you’ll have quick wins every step of the way. You can stop at any time, but each rung leads you logically to the next one, toward ever-increasing energy ROI. The Enspi Energy LadderTM takes you from the most fundamental steps of managing energy to the most advanced strategies around optimizing and even reselling your energy into the marketplace. There are four steps, or “rungs” to our ladder: See, Save, Sustain and Sell. Here’s how it works:
Rung 1: See Your Energy
How are you using energy today? The first step is to understand and monitor your energy use. An energy audit will tell you where your organization is using the most energy and identify any inefficiencies. Installing smart meters and monitoring software on your heaviest use equipment will help you get even more granular.We generally recommend monitoring your energy use for about 45 days before any big changes are made.It will also help you prioritize low-cost, high-impact energy-saving measures for immediate implementation, and that’s a big win!
Rung 2: Save Your Energy
Using the results of your audit, consider ways you can shift energy use, such as scheduling energy-intensive equipment during off-peak hours. Use automation to turn off equipment when not in use. Evaluate the need for equipment upgrades and consider the ROI of such improvements. Analyze past utility bills for any time-of-use rates to identify potential savings. Zero in on incorrect meter readings, wrong tariff classifications, or overcharges and work with your utility to have those charges corrected. A simple tool like Enspi Bill Analyzer can be a helpful guide, using AI to provide recommendations based on past use and utility rate information.
Rung 3: Sustain Your Energy
Once you’ve optimized and saved as much energy as possible, consider switching to renewable sources of energy to reduce your costs and carbon emissions even further. Many mid-sized manufacturers are making the switch to solar with battery backup to ensure resilience in times of power outages and save even more on utility bills. The upfront cost of these systems has decreased dramatically over the past decade, and incentives available through the Inflation Reduction Act sweeten the deal.
Rung 4: Sell Your Energy
This is the most rewarding stage of energy optimization, transforming energy from a cost center to a profit generator. Beyond reducing consumption and increasing efficiency, manufacturers can now access new revenue streams by participating in wholesale electricity markets. Using Enspi's PowerUp virtual power plant platform, you can sell excess energy, curtail usage during peak demand, and engage in demand response programs. This AI enabled system is a game-changer that turns energy into a competitive advantage and opens up opportunities previously available only to large corporations.
Enspi can help you on every rung of the ladder, finding new opportunities for energy efficiency, identifying gaps in your energy optimization efforts, and facilitating the transition to clean energy and VPPs.
In our next post, we’ll dig deeper and talk through some of the renewable energy options for manufacturers and the nuts and bolts of Virtual Power Plants.
In the world of manufacturing, energy is no longer just an expense – it can be used as a strategic advantage to achieve your sustainability goals while generating bottom-line value for your business. Using the energy ladder approach is a simple, proven way to get there.