March 23rd, We have had an informative Industrial Maintenance (IMRt) event on Improving Energy Productivity.

Energy productivity - For most companies Energy is one of the fastest growing costs in the business and is typically in the top 5 costs. There is more technology available now than at any other time in our history to enable us to monitor and improve our energy use.

Energy productivity can be optimised with Capital work, no cost/low cost continuous improvement and with repairs and maintenance. 

We had 5 great presentations from Dr David Cookson and Stephanie Xoueisomphong from ANSTO - Australian Synchrotron, Jarrod Leak from A2EP, Andy Fitzgerald from Melbourne Water, and Satinder Sahni from Asahi who shared their experience and knowledge on the subject of Improving Energy Productivity.

We had 33 people attend from Across Australia and New Zealand

People came with the following aims:

• Hoping to get some more understanding of what other companies are doing.
• Looking to understand how I can use the data we have to drive targeted improvements
• Looking to get a better understanding of energy saving principles for future brown field projects.
• Looking to learn about new technologies and strategies for energy saving.
• Productivity (e.g. plant operating changes to get 10% to 100% rate gains)  and renewable energy focus (e.g. utilization of Oxygen from electrolysis)
• Keen to understand the kind of initiatives industry are working on to drive energy productivity
• Keen to learn about opportunities to optimize energy productivity and tools/insights to drive efficiencies. 
• Looking to expand knowledge of energy productivity initiatives for application in project delivery.
• Keen to understand the initiatives to optimise and reduce energy usage
• Understanding what industry is achieving in energy consumption reductions through improved plant reliability
• Keen to learn how we can be more productive with energy usage and shift to zero emission
• Would like to understand ways to reduce or optimize energy use in industry
• Looking to learn more around what is out there as potential improvement idea's that could be implemented on our site.

With the following questions and comments in the chat which were answered in the session:

• There is no use of heat generated during this process?
• Does the Synchrotron run all the time or for short periods ?
• Do you have resources to assist with energy saving government funding/grants to assist with some of these projects?
• You have solar thermal plant in the background.  Where do you see that fitting in, in Australia and heavy chemical industry
• Jarrod what are the alternatives for base load power as coal is phased out. It seems we are closing coal power plants before a viable alternative is in place...
• In terms of 2050 Zero target how does bio diesel fit at executive level …. is cyclic but how to account for CO2 emissions
• Wondering how the United Energy views power reduction in day time then the increase in the evening potentially when residential demand rises.  Also, then whether a battery of sorts was considered or a combination of wind and solar
• Be interested to know the overall efficiency of the Biogas engines
• How did you justify the tracking solar... seems like very early start and late finish for solar...
• Can you elaborate more on the pump survey?

And left with the following takeaways:

• Beam Dump
• I already have a few project ideas for our site to investigate because of your presentation (Opportunities areas with VSD's, Compressed air usage efficiency, Heat Pumps/Chillers, etc)
• Thank you Jarrod, really interesting presentation and appreciate all the thoughts and ideas pulled together on ways forward
• Appreciate and very informative presentations.
• Great day today thanks for organising this. Particular interest for me was around the heat recovery and optimisation carried around at the various sites.
• Refrigeration heat recovery is one of the excellent idea which I would like to work upon.
• If you can measure it you can target it
• Great to see those specific examples from Satinder.  Many thx.
• Great session and very informative from all presenters!
• Great to see some good examples, particularly as I reflect on our business, where we are multiple >20 sites and seek to standardise our approach to reducing energy intensity
• Key take out was regarding some of Satinder's KPI's regarding compressed air. I also got some great information on Bioenergy both from presentation and the break outs.
• Gaining an insight into what is being done elsewhere and sharing key takeaways with my broader team
• Take away from today's session, Compressed air V/s Blower, Biogas fuel, Pump Survey and government funding, LED light replacement through government funding
• Great exposure to what other groups are doing to manage efficiencies.
• Take away. Fit for purpose Compressor pressure design.  Electrical actuation to display pneumatics.  Thanks for the invite was valuable session

Our next IMRt Eastern Area event:

April 5th 2022 SIRF IMRt CIWG Developing Maintenance KPIs and Measures

We already have 55 people registered so hurry to register on the above link.

Hope to see you there! Regards, Angus Mackintosh