Carbon Dioxide CO2 contributes 63% of Green House Gases (Hadley Center For Climate Change) and energy generation is the largest C02 contributor, a reduction in energy consumption reduces the need for energy generation, which in turn reduces the CO2 being generated. Thus, you can reduce CO2 produced by reducing energy consumption, and you can reduce energy consumption by proper asset management, then by improving your asset management you can reduce CO2, and you can reduce the energy costs.
Properly maintained equipment & systems are referenced in these series of Blogs, as a fundamental part of energy efficiency (see: Energy Efficiency Part II - Energy in Manufacturing). There are various maintenance strategies available from emergency maintenance (not recommend for energy reduction), preventative maintenance (maintenance that is performed on a scheduled basis based on elapsed time, number of runs or number of objects processed), to condition based maintenance (maintenance that uses real-time data, or condition of the asset to prioritize and optimize maintenance resources).
While preventative maintenance will keep the equipment running without break down and will result in moderate energy reduction, having the maintenance being triggered based condition of the equipment & system is a proven way of reducing maintenance costs & improving the operating life of the equipment or asset. Including a condition of energy consumption (energy intensity) can indicate that the equipment or system needs maintenance, even though there is no indication of a problem, that is the product is product is produced, in good quality, quality, and on time. An improperly tuned engine, for example, hurts gas mileage by an average of 4.1 percent, according to U.S. government studies. The decline in gas mileage, in this case an indicator for energy intensity, indicates the engine needs a tune-up. Adding energy intensity to the as part of condition based maintenance enables another condition to indicate potential problems.
