Transcript
“Westbridge Containers is a manufacturing company, we make plastic bottles for the beverage industry and the food industry” says Dave Birkby, president and CEO of Westbridge Containers.
“We spend about a million dollars on energy a year. It’s an attractive cost reduction opportunity for us. We use a melt process where we start off with a resin polyester, basically the same kind of polyester that your clothes are made from, and we melt that polyester at about 550 degrees Fahrenheit. It takes a lot of energy to melt that material.”
“We use very large 400 horsepower compressors. So, between the compressors and the melt process we consume about 2000 to 3000 amps of power. When you consider that the average home is around 200 amps, 2000 to 3000 amps is quite a bit of energy.”
“When Westbridge is looking at a strategy for energy conservation the first thing we look for is low-hanging fruit. What are the easy opportunities for us to address and I’m talking about things that could be as easy as flipping off a switch and turning off lights. We rely on our employees to a large extent to get at some those easy energy conservation opportunities.”
“There is a number of cost saving opportunities in any manufacturing plant and ours is no exception. There a number of compressors we use in our process. About six months ago we did some experimenting with these compressors and found that we could actually run about 30 per cent less pressure and still make quality product. That’s probably our largest energy savings initiative.”
“Another example that’s important for anyone that’s consuming power is power factor. Power factor is a measurement of the efficiency and if you’re using it efficiently then that power factor should be very close to one. We have T5 lighting in this room, T5 lighting is the most efficient lighting you can buy these days. It saves us about 30 per cent in our energy consumption.”
“There are a number of conveyors in the plant, these conveyors provide a very useful service. When they’re not running and there is no bottles they don’t know when to shut down. A lot of the motors that we use you’re trying to put some intelligence into those motors so they know when to be on and when to be off.”
“Another example would be the refrigerant we use in our chillers to chill water down so that we can cool our molds. This takes a fair bit of energy There is a new refrigerant out that will reduce the energy consumption by about 30 per cent. We’re in the process of looking at those materials.”
“The kind of advice I would give other companies is that they should have an energy conservation champion. You need to communicate to your employees and let them all know that this is an important part of the business. We need to save energy and it’s in everyone’s best interests. Aside from the fact that it’s good for the environment it’s also good for the bottom line.”
