Enigin Update - Energy Efficiency Sweet Pill saves Pfizer $2.6 million in 2009
PHARMACEUTICAL giant Pfizer has announced that it saved on average $1.4 million annually by installing energy-efficient light fixtures, timers and occupancy sensors in just one of its facilities.
Pfizer’s Kalamazoo, Michigan facility made the saving each year between 2004 and 2009, with savings last year alone totaling $2.6 million, according to MLive.com.
The pharmaceutical company’s efforts in Kalamazoo County are part of their global initiative to cut greenhouse gas emissions. They have also reduced carbon dioxide emissions globally by 120,000 metric tons dues to it more than 500 energy conservation projects.
Pfizer, famously the makers of Viagra amongst other leading drugs, has actually exceeded in its goal of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 35 percent on a relative basis from 2000 to 2007, and cutting GHG emissions by 43 percent in 2007 with an additional 20 percent over 2007 to 2008.
Many other companies have succeeded in reducing energy use and GHG emissions using the same strategy as Pfizer by tracking and bench marking their energy use.
Energy Star, who encourage industries become energy efficient in the U.S., report that from their analysis some of the biggest consumers of energy in pharmaceutical facilities prove to be HVAC equipment as well as R&D and lab spaces.
An Energy Star rated pharmaceutical site must benchmark its energy efficiency using the Energy Star Energy Performance Indicator (EPI).
Benchmarking energy use is important because it enables corporations to set goals for improvements and to monitor progress. Energy Star, offers plant energy performance indicators (EPI) to enable decision makers to evaluate the energy efficiency of their plants relative to that of the industry.
However, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says its Energy Star programme for pharmaceutical facilities is still under development, for example, there is no benchmarking tool for lab spaces yet, but the programme has helped many pharmaceutical companies already to hunt down opportunities to reduce energy use.
As an example, pharmaceutical company Merck began their energy saving efforts by establishing a baseline of energy use at all of its facilities, they then developed a metric for energy intensity based on how many millions of BTUs of energy were being used per square foot of space.
Merck identified HVAC as the largest consumer of energy at its facilities, and followed up the initial study with facility-specific projects to save and reduce energy.
Enigin Distributors offer their clients the perfect solution to monitoring and managing energy use through Enigin PLC's Eniscope. The Eniscope system displays and reports energy use in real-time, plus delivering clear historical energy use data, allowing straightforward energy benchmarking and ongoing control of energy use either by individual equipment, room, area, department or the whole building or site.
