Schneider cuts the costs of its own sites

Schneider Electric has published details of the energy consumption of 160 production and logistics sites every year since 2005, in the context of the Schneider Energy Action program, with the aim of achieving significant reductions in its energy consumption.

Schneider Energy Action is an energy efficiency program which combines, hardware and software solutions, expertise and methodology. Its main objectives are to achieve continuous overall reduction of electricity, gas and oil consumption; implement the group’s own solutions across all of its sites; and raise employees’ awareness of the new energy efficiency offers and help them understand how they can contribute to their development.

From the program launch, the objective of reducing energy consumption by ten percent per person and per production site was met globally, and in some cases exceeded.

To achieve this, Schneider Electric, after an initial audit phase, made major investments – up to the end of 2011, several million euros were allocated annually to equip these sites with almost 500 variable speed drives, 1,900 meters and hundreds of sensors, controllers and other building management systems. Similarly, it has also been decided to replace existing lighting with low consumption systems and to install more efficient heat engines. An investment that paid for itself in less than three years (ROI).

“As a whole, Schneider Electric’s sites globally consume very little energy in comparison with other industrial activities. However, we want to set an example, applying our own solutions. The Schneider Energy Action program makes use of all our know-how, from global energy expertise to hardware and software solutions.” said Jean-Yves Blanc, Schneider Energy Action manager, Schneider Electric.

Having achieved these results, Schneider Electric has just set itself a new challenge – to save a further ten percent by 2014.

To achieve this, the 2012-2014 company program incorporates a series of ambitious measures, based on the implementation of the Schneider Electric Struxureware software suite and associated services. These are:

• Connection of all sites larger than 5,000m2 to Struxureware Energy Operation, Schneider Electric’s energy monitoring platform.
• Implementation of Struxureware Resource Advisor which makes it possible to access energy bills, check their accuracy, optimise supply contracts and save on unregulated markets.
• Deployment of ISO 50001 certification on 20 sites of the Group.
• Implementation of a global service contract in order to maintain the achieved savings.

“We have achieved excellent results with the Schneider Energy Action program – to date we have reduced our energy consumption by 15%, and we are continuing our efforts. Implementing a program like this requires a solid project management methodology to coordinate the various actions required. This experience will now enable us to support our customers worldwide in similar energy efficiency processes”, said Jean-Yves Blanc.