Energy efficiency has become critically important to companies, governments and consumers due to soaring energy prices, rising demand in power-hungry developing nations, and concern about the effect of man-made emissions on climate change.
It’s one of ABB’s key areas of focus – in its own manufacturing processes and the products provided to customers. The company also promotes energy efficiency as a member of international organizations committed to fostering economic growth while limiting emissions of greenhouse gases.
How do we define energy efficiency? For ABB it means cutting energy use without reducing the output of energy-consuming plants and equipment. It means promoting behavior, working methods and manufacturing techniques which are less energy-intensive.
Energy efficiency is embedded in the products, systems and services that ABB provides throughout the supply chain, from the extraction of energy to its use by consumers. Life Cycle Assessment studies of installations using ABB products show their main environmental benefit consists in reducing customers’ energy use.
Two examples of how energy-efficient products can lower environmental impact:
The installed base of ABB drives saved about 190 TWh in 2008, equivalent with the electricity consumption of more than 42 million households in the EU-27. If that 190 TWh had been generated by fossil fuel powered electricity plants, ABB drives reduced CO2 emissions in 2008 by about 140 million tons, corresponding with the yearly emission of more than 35 million cars.
Utilities and industries using an all-in-one ABB disconnecting circuit breaker instead of separate conventional technologies in substations can cut CO2 emissions by more than 200 tons over the product's lifetime.
There are, however, still obstacles to more widespread use of energy-efficient products. These include institutional and legal barriers, along with a tendency among project owners to focus on the initial purchase price of a product rather than its value, in terms of total savings over a product’s working life.
ABB’s own activities are not energy-intensive, with annual greenhouse gas emissions from its operations totaling approximately 1.5 million tons. Nevertheless, the company is in the midst of a two-year program to cut energy use by 2.5 percent per employee per year.
Simple measures can have a large impact.
In Sweden, 140 energy saving projects have been identified in technical and behavioral categories. With more than one-third of these projects now completed, energy savings equal to 4,150 tons of C02 emissions annually have been generated, reducing annual energy costs for ABB in Sweden by USD 0.8 million.
ABB in China launched a campaign in 2009 that has yielded hundreds of practical suggestions from employees on ways to save energy and costs in ABB's operations, from reducing the number of overhead lights to turning off air conditioning half an hour before the work day ends.
The savings are measured and monitored by ABB’s global network of some 400 employees responsible for sustainability issues.