Process improvements from energy efficiency technologies could save businesses US$600 billion per year and “transform how industries use energy,” especially in energy-intensive sectors like chemicals, cement, and metals and mining, according to a review published this month by McKinsey & Company.
“While operational improvements can reduce energy consumption by 10 to 20%, investment in energy-efficiency technologies can boost that to 50% or more,” McKinsey reports. “For example, the cost of clean-room-environment control could be reduced from 50% of energy consumption to a fifth of that, and there are also sizeable gains to be made in cement, refining, and steel.”
McKinsey lists 33 innovations that could cut energy use in one or more industrial sectors. “Most of these technologies are already available,” the authors state. “The challenge for companies is to figure out which ones to use, how to put them into practice, and how to renew them so that they continue to work year in and year out.”
The summary suggests five strategies for energy and cost savings in industry: building an in-house resource productivity strategy, setting ambitious but realistic goals based on “the lowest amount of energy required for a given process,” using profit analysis to boost energy productivity, thinking holistically, and adopting “circular” strategies that treat a product “as a future resource that can be used repeatedly, moving from the usual linear supply chain toward supply circles.” (h/t to The Energy Mix subscriber Elizabeth Valestuk Henderson for pointing us to this story)
