Over 7,000 cities are now part of Earth Hour – See how your process can save energy

Phil Black - PII Editor 01/04/2014

118 3 minutes read

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Since 2007, Earth Hour has gathered pace as one of the most popular eco-friendly movements in the world. Organized by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), the event now engages 7000 cities and towns worldwide. In this blog post, we have a few tips on how businesses across the UK can do their bit for Earth Hour and also achieve continuous energy savings.

Held at the end of March every year, Earth Hour aims to convince individuals, households, communities and industry leaders to turn off their non-essential lights for one hour as a symbol for their commitment to saving the planet.

This year Earth Hour is planned for Saturday, March 29, from 8:30 pm to 9:30 pm local time. More than 1,200 businesses and over 10 million people took part in last year’s experience. The energy savings, as well as the darkened landscape across the country were impressive to say the least.

Overall, Earth Hour is a great initiative and it draws attention to the biggest environmental issue of the 21st century. However, UK Plc must find ways of saving energy in each hour of the remaining 364 days of the year if it hopes to improve its bottom line. One of the ways this can be achieved is by managing power use more effectively.

CD Automation has been helping businesses up and down the country by supplying power filters, soft starters and temperature controllers. These products not only increase the ROI (Return on Investment) for the purchased equipment, but also achieve a reduction in the energy used by the application.

Temperature controllers can be used for comparing the process temperature with the desired or required value. Their role is to use the difference between the two values and decide how much heating or cooling is needed to bring the process temperature back to the desired level. This means that, in a manufacturing environment, any errors can be spotted quickly and less energy is wasted. PID control algorithms can help manage temperature deviations accurately and safely.

REVO-PC is another useful instrument which can help save businesses money. A power management system, the REVO-PC minimises energy costs by controlling synchronisation and power limit of multiple zones on a machine or plant.

In addition, it reduces harmonics and flicker by synchronising loads, as well as limiting maximum power demand; this way maximum demand supply contracts are not exceeded.

But as a rule of thumb, the best way of reducing the amount of electricity you consume is to be aware of how much you need in the first place. By closely monitoring, recording and logging process data, industrial organisations can gather the information they need to make informed energy saving decisions.

Using videographic recorders, such as the ones CD Automation supplies, can help keep usage on track and allow plant managers to turn off or turn down non-essential applications.

If your plant already uses temperature controllers, power controllers and data loggers, then additional savings can be made by using an integrated factory management system. This will give you real time data on energy consumption, monitor temperature and processes and react when applications need adjusting in order to use less energy.

Earth Hour’s beautiful display of darkness in the most iconic landmarks has become a global phenomenon. It connects millions of individuals in over 150 countries, all hoping for the same result: a better and cleaner future for our planet. But organisations in the industrial sector can do their bit as well, and thanks to monitoring and control technologies, their savings could actually make a global impact.

So if you would like to pay less for your electricity bills and make your plant an eco-responsible one, get in touch and see what savings we could achieve for you.