Sustainability goals are everywhere in manufacturing; net-zero by 2030, carbon neutral by 2035. While many manufacturers have set ambitious targets, the gap between goals and execution remains a challenge, especially when sustainability projects compete with production priorities for capital.
Eric Spink and Shiva Subramanya from Veregy join the show to talk about energy transition and what it looks like in practice. Energy used to be just another line item and the cost of doing business, now it’s tied to resilience, sustainability, and a company’s long-term strategy.
One key insight from the conversation was how the equipment on the perimeter of your manufacturing floor (think compressed air systems, boilers, refrigeration, and HVAC) consumes 60-80% of your plant’s total energy.
But manufacturers typically don’t have expertise in these support utilities, which is why they get overlooked for efficiency opportunities. We dive into real projects, including a five-plant dairy operation where AI can predict steam demand based on production data. Plus, how performance contracting allows manufacturers to fund these projects using energy savings rather than tying up capital.
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3 Quick Things from this Episode
- Plants are dynamic places that change constantly, but control strategies often aren’t upgraded from when they were designed. AI could allow control systems to adjust dynamically as production conditions change in real-time, potentially achieving new levels of energy efficiency that aren’t possible with static strategies designed years ago.
- Plant floor data and utility data traditionally don’t communicate. Boilers run on proprietary vendor systems while production operates on separate PLC systems. The future of smart manufacturing lies in bringing secondary utilities onto the same network as production equipment, creating one integrated system of industrial automation.
- The best energy projects improve both energy savings and product quality. Better controls and sensors can reduce energy consumption while eliminating issues that degrade products. When energy efficiency aligns with production outcomes, sustainability projects become easier to justify and fund.
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Tweetable Quotes
- “Traditionally, manufacturing companies have relied on their own capital to implement sustainability projects. But they always compete with productivity goals. With performance contractors, companies can now use the savings from energy reductions and put their capital elsewhere but still implement energy efficiency projects.” – Eric Spink
- “Upgrading control systems by putting in PLC-based controls, and adding instrumentation and metering really allows all these systems to consume a lot less energy. Historically these have yielded very high paybacks, between one and a half and two years in many cases.” – Eric Spink
- “Having a sustainability goal is important, but having a sustainability plan is key. The sustainability plan needs to include how the organization is going to implement it and how it’s going to be funded year-on-year.” – Shiva Subramanya
Please Scroll Down for Recommended Resources from this Episode
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What We Discuss with Eric and Shiva
- Why energy has evolved from an expense to a strategic priority
- How perimeter equipment consumes 60-80% of plant energy but often receives the least attention
- Why sustainability projects typically compete with production priorities for budget
- How performance contracting uses energy savings to fund improvements without capital investment
- The low-hanging fruit in most plants, such as compressed air leaks, lighting upgrades, and controls optimization
- What happens when you connect production data with utility systems using AI and advanced controls
- Real examples from dairy processing that delivered significant energy savings
Recommended Resources
- Veregy, an award-winning decarbonization company providing turnkey engineering and construction services to reduce energy costs through efficiency upgrades, smart building technology, EV infrastructure, and clean energy solutions.
- Skillwork, a premier staffing agency providing skilled industrial technicians on a contract basis to augment facility teams across 30+ states for elevated impact and decreased downtime.
- Fortinet, securing the world’s largest enterprises, service providers, and government organizations with broad, integrated, and automated protections across the entire digital attack surface from production floor to cloud.
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