Energy & Power, Heating, Cooling & Drying

Using Energy Efficiency To Meet Sustainable Development Goals

Phil Black - PII Editor 14/07/2023

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As industry takes steps towards decarbonisation, it’s worth knowing how to apply energy efficient technology to boost progress towards Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Energy efficiency is a measure of how effectively a system uses energy, calculated as a percentage of energy output to input. The higher the percentage, the better as it shows that less energy is being lost as heat, noise or vibration.

Energy efficiency is integral to sustainable development

When it comes to SDGs, energy efficiency supports the principle of sustainable development, where the needs of the present are met without compromising the needs of future generations. Energy is a limited resource that must be used wisely to meet growing demand.

By 2050, the global population will rise to 9.7 billion. At the same time, more people will live in urban areas and many industries will have transitioned from fossil fuel to electricity.

Sustainable development requires a balance between social, economic and environmental factors. The United Nations (UN) has defined 17 SDGs that focus on improving outcomes in specific areas. These form a useful framework for business and industry to align with, and it’s notable that energy resources are influential in several of the SDGs.

From an industrial perspective, businesses with high energy demand can focus on several SDGs to improve their sustainability and align with the UN’s approach. Efficient use of energy is integral to SDGs 7, 9, 11 and 12 which cover affordable clean energy; industry, innovation and infrastructure; sustainable cities and communities; and responsible consumption and production.

Achieving SDGs with energy efficient technology

By using electrical energy more efficiently, industry can stretch its resources to go further. This means that society will require fewer wind turbines, solar farms and power stations. The International Energy Agency (IEA) calls energy saved through efficiency schemes “first fuel” as it represents energy resources that nobody needed to develop.

Technology is the key to achieving this. In particular high-efficiency electric motors and variable speed drives (VSDs) have huge potential to cut electricity demand from industry, infrastructure and the built environment.

It’s been estimated that there are around 300 million industrial motors in operation around the world and if these were replaced with optimised high-efficiency equipment, global electricity consumption could be reduced by 10 percent.

This equates to more than 90%of the EU’s entire electricity consumption.

Boosting energy efficiency of motor-driven systems can also help to meet incoming legislation as governments introduce hard targets for decarbonisation.

Identifying the best opportunities for efficiency

The challenge faced by companies is knowing which motors to target for upgrade to high efficiency. A typical industrial site could be home to a fleet of hundreds of motors that power pumps, motors, fans, conveyors and other machinery. It is difficult to know which ones have the biggest opportunity for improvement.

A further challenge is that budgets are limited so business leaders need evidence before they will make investments in upgrading equipment. Therefore, it’s usual practice for motors to remain in service even though it would make financial sense to replace them and immediately reduce energy consumption and utility bills, as well as cutting the CO₂ emissions related to electricity generation.

One company that has achieved this is the flooring manufacturer Tarkett. It recently used ABB’s digital energy appraisal to identify inefficient motors at its Ronneby factory in Sweden. After the energy audit, it replaced 10 motors with new systems based on ultra-premium efficiency IE5 SynRM motor-drive packages. This improved the efficiency of these systems by 15%and enabled an energy saving of 800MWh per year from an investment with an 18-month payback period.

Data-driven decision-making

Data is the key to identifying opportunities like this. By gathering data from connected motors using an energy efficiency assessment, it’s possible to monitor large fleets of motors and pinpoint which ones are operating least efficiently and suggest actions to improve performance.

This approach makes it possible to precisely quantify how much energy can be saved by upgrading individual motors to achieve better energy efficiency. As a result, it’s possible to make informed decisions to maximise savings in emissions and energy bills.

Even though prices are now stabilising, the recent market variability shows that energy will remain a precious resource long into the future. By investing in energy-efficient motors and VSDs, industrial businesses can cut waste. In addition, they can future proof their business by reducing their carbon dioxide emissions to meet tightening emissions legislation.