Industrial Facility Energy Efficiency: Worth a Second Look

摘要

The U.S. industrial sector accounts for approximately one-third of total energy use in the U.S. and slightly more than one-fourth of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions. Because facility or building envelope energy use in industrial facilities – non-process and cross-cutting systems energy use - accounts for approximately 5% of industrial energy consumption, industrial process and cross-cutting technologies receive more attention for energy efficiency improvements. As a result, some energy savings opportunities in industrial facilities may be overlooked despite high shares of energy use by non-process applications in certain industrial subsectors. And, in certain energy-intensive facilities such as clean-rooms, laboratories, and data centers the line between process and facility energy use are fuzzy, due to significant “facility” energy demands for heat removal from servers , air filtration, and tightly controlled space conditioning. Commercial and residential building energy codes have significantly improved energy efficiency over the past two decades, complemented by technology advances, the impact of utility programs, voluntary ratings like LEED and Energy Star, and appliance standards. Despite relying on many of the same envelope and mechanical systems as their commercial counterparts, industrial facilities have sometimes been overlooked by both building code advancement and beyond-code programs. This paper investigates the opportunities for energy savings at the facility level in U.S. industrial plants-particularly in selected facility types with high non-process energy use. We explore the relatively limited market penetration of effective beyond-code programs such as utility DSM programs and LEED within the industrial sector. We conclude with policy and program recommendations.