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Energy Efficient Technologies

by Tarun Mishra
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Energy efficiency measures are tools and techniques used to reduce the total amount of energy consumption in any operation. Reducing consumption for same service is one of the best ways to have an energy and carbon impact, although not as much talked about as other clean technologies.

An average household in India consumes approximately 1000 KWH of electricity per year. Total industrial consumption of electricity in India is approx. 425000 GWH per year. Despite a continuous improvements shown in energy efficiency by taking various conventional measures in the past, industry still has an opportunity to reduce energy consumption by 15% in next 5 years.

To give a sense of scale, reducing 15% electricity consumption in next 5 year is equivalent to providing electricity to additional 10 Crore households in India that too without incurring a single rupee of generation cost.

Reducing consumption for same service is one of the best ways to have an energy and carbon impact, although not as much talked about as other clean technologies.

The size and impact of electricity optimization in Industry is unthinkable. Industries have always focussed on improving efficiency in their processes, be it new machines, better scheduling, better lighting and all sort of other methods to reduce the cost of production.But next big wave in energy efficiency will come from data and the application of IoT, artificial intelligence and machine learning in the industrial space.

Earlier there was less data from machines and excel sheets were being used to do the analysis!Artificial intelligence solutions study the energy consumption profile for every single machine in industry and provides the spread of inefficiencies along with the root cause. Integration of these analysis along with industrial control systems creates unthinkable opportunity in energy intensity of the India.

For example: Covacsis, a leading IoT technology provider based out in Mumbai, has saved approx. 490,000 KWH of electricity per year at one small metal processing factory in India. This amounts to 490 new households getting electricity without any generation cost.

Around 42% of total electricity consumption in India is by Industry alone. Energy Intensity in India is 0.27 Mega Joules/Rupee. Every 1% saving of electricity by Industry creates a major opportunity for GDP growth of India.

Application of IoT, AI and ML based intervention is also clean and green leading to increase in sustainability quotient of the industry. In another example Covacsis solution helped a leading textile manufacturer to reduce the steam consumption by more than 50% over 3 years. This happened by real time pattern identification of energy by every single machine in the factory and optimizing it further for optimal productivity. High dispersion in energy consumption by various motors was an indicator of poor health of machines. Identification of such machines in real time leads to better predictive managements of assets leading to huge reduction in steam consumption.

Application of IoT, AI and ML based intervention is also clean and green leading to increase in sustainability quotient of the industry.

Engineering company and CNC shops are another example of huge energy consumer within industrial sectors. Milling, Drilling, Cutting operations requires tremendous amount of electricity.  1% reduction in rejection in CNC operations will have great impact on energy foot print of India.

The biggest advantage of using artificial intelligence and machine learning technology is that it is extremely cost effective unlike traditional technologies. ROI from the usages of such solution is in the multiple of 25x or more for industry.

Almost every industry stands to benefit and the adopters will have a competitive advantage. It is imperative for the industries start adopting AI, ML and IoT based technology sooner than later, not only to save costs but also for its survival.

Tarun Mishra
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