Taken energy-saving measures because of a price on carbon
Klimaatplein.com, a social enterprise based in the Netherlands, carried out a unique testcase with carbon pricing with Dutch SME’s one year ago. Three companies gained insight into their carbon footprint and in the amount of money that they would have to pay when there was a price on greenhouse gases (€100,- per ton CO2). What energy-saving measures have these companies taken in response to this testcase in order to keep future CO2 costs as low as possible?
To begin with, the carbon pricing testcase led to more awareness by the participating organizations. Where are CO2 emissions caused, how can this be avoided and what does a price on CO2 do with choices made about energy-efficiency investments? These questions were all answered by taking part of the testcase.
One year later we asked the participating companies what kind of energy-saving and CO2-reduction measures they have taken in response to participation in the testcase. And that are actually quite al lot of measures. Below you can read the list of taken actions by the three participants.
- Remaining conventional lighting in warehouses replaced by LED lighting.
- Purchasing green electricity from wind energy.
- Purchasing of electric company car for deliveries in the region.
- Various company cars replaced by vehicles that are more economical in fuel-consumption.
- Truck has been replaced by a new, more economical one.
- Standardization and uniformization of stocks (parts) in the buses. Partly because of this, the company can drive with smaller buses. These consume less fuel because they have less air-resistance and are less heavily loaded.
- Purchase of more than 360 solar panels, which will be placed in mid-July 2018. With this a participant can partially provide for its own green electricity.
- Purchase of a software program to regulate transport more efficiently. With this program the participant can plan routes and drivers / mechanics more efficiently and thereby save fuel.
- Providing insight into the power consumption per department, which makes the participant better able to implement energy-saving measures.
- New energy efficient steam boiler with Economizer and O2 control-A forming station has been purchased so that so-called forming operations can be performed on this machine instead of on the tenter frame. The tenter must always remain warm, while this is not necessary for the machining. This saves on natural gas.-Transport savings through new calender (instead of external calendering)
- Automate the burner settings during fixation processes. (The saving is based on 2.5% savings on the total consumption of the tension windows.)-The compressors suck air from outside. This air is heated up and discharged outside. Instead of draining off, the air can be used to heat the combustion air from the steam boiler and / or the adjacent paint preparation room. Only in the first case could the heat be usefully reused outside the heating season.
- Some of newly purchased trucks now have a cooling engines that are powered by electricity, which saves diesel.
Because of these results, we hope we can expand this testcase as quickly as possible in the Netherlands or elsewhere in the world. For more information, please contact Rob van der Rijt by robvanderrijt (@) klimaatplein.com