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Machines, Equipment and Motors

Do you use a lot of process energy?

Energy-intensive processes such as cooking, welding, and automobile painting all rely on energy powered equipment to transform material. For many, process energy is a substantial portion of their total energy consumption.

Even for relatively small operations such as restaurants, bakeries, printing and electroplating plants, the process energy costs may be substantial. Minimizing process energy cost could significantly improve the bottom line.

Energy savings potentials
Reducing energy use by machines may be an especially important part of your energy saving efforts. While there are many techniques for saving energy in lighting, heating and air conditioning, there's basically only one way to save energy used by office machines: turn them off when not needed.

Wasting energy "standing by"
Office machines use energy to: move something (e.g., a piece of paper, through a copier); heat something (e.g., the toner in the copier); and cool the machine (most have a fan to keep air circulating to dissipate heat from the motor and heating element). They cost you energy dollars for their operation, and the heat they throw off adds to the air conditioning load.

But how much of the time are they really doing any work? If you think of it, many machines that are kept running are actually used relatively little; frequently they are only "standing by", waiting to be used. Or they are left on unnecessarily when the area is unoccupied.

Find out how to reduce overall consumption, and consumption for refrigeration and cooking, and motors.