Podcast: How electrification is helping manufacturers meet their net zero goals
Trevor Joelson is an energy and decarbonization service account executive at Trane. Over the past ten years, Trevor has held various roles in corporate energy and sustainability management and has become an expert in the energy markets and how the supply-side of energy connects to the built environment. In his current role, Trevor works with manufacturers to help them establish strategies and programs to meet decarbonization objectives. Trevor recently spoke with Plant Services managing editor Anna Townshend about utilizing electrification as a growing part of your plant’s emissions reduction strategy.
Below is an excerpt from the podcast:
PS: Today, we are talking about electrification for manufacturers. What are you hearing from your customers when it comes to electrification efforts? How often are they having these discussions and how much of a priority is it for them?
TJ: Well, I think the best thing I can point to is right before this discussion, I had a conversation around electrification for a large industrial manufacturer that is really starting to focus in on how they're going to electrify the heat within their facilities. And in general, we've seen an increasing trend around electrification, as customers are on some type of net zero journey. And when you're on a net zero journey, lots of times, you focus on renewable energy at first, or energy efficiency, and then you start to see this nagging thing that is your Scope One fossil fuel emissions, and you realize that you're going to need to address that, and that there's not necessarily the cleanest path to be able to do that. So as customers are setting those goals, and they're starting to really go after them in earnest, and large manufacturers are, electrification is recognized as the high pole in the tent, and we're seeing that customers want to be able to have a plan in place and have a plan that's going to align to those sustainability commitments.
PS: Yeah, the clock is really ticking in many industries for some of those climate change efforts, specifically, as you mentioned, in terms of the greenhouse gas emissions. So it's a big issue for industry. It's a huge challenge, but we're glad to have you here to help outline where industry is at.
TJ: If I can just add another comment to it specific to electrification, what we've recognized is if a customer has put out a goal and that goal says net zero, which means that you're not going to have fossil fuels within your operations. And if that goal is 2040 or sooner, the reality is the next piece of equipment that you buy that utilizes fossil fuels is going to outlive that goal. Most equipment life is 15 to 20 years, and by the time you get it installed, you have less than 15 years before your goal is going to be in place. So while that ticking clock is certainly happening, there's also the reality of the life cycle and useful life of equipment that these manufacturers are thinking about.
PS: It's a big, big investment. Well, let's talk more about how you're helping plants use electrification to save energy and to save money. When manufacturers are getting started, what should they be thinking about in a project like this, and what are some of the typical pitfalls to avoid?
TJ: In terms of starting, I'm going to go back to the life of the assets. The best place for a manufacturer to start their journey is where they need to renew an existing asset. They have something that's aged out. It's creating issues within their built environment or their operations, and it needs to have a replacement. And maybe it's using fossil fuels today, but it has the opportunity to move to a more sustainable, all-electric source. So having a clear understanding of your asset inventory, the life of all of those assets, and then a plan around it is the starting point of a journey for a large customer.
In terms of pitfalls that we see customers run into with electrification, the number one pitfall is making sure that you have enough electrical infrastructure, if you are replacing a natural gas heating mechanisms with an electric heating mechanism, that can have huge power requirements. And there's a heavy narrative right now about all of the electrical demand we have across North America and across the globe certainly, AI [artificial intelligence] demand, and all those things that you've covered in the past. If you're looking to electrify your heat, and you're a manufacturer that's going to be increasing your electrical load, finding the availability from your utility, and then at your site itself, having the infrastructure to be able to support all those electrification requirements, it can be a huge hurdle to overcome.
Two ways we're helping customers overcome that, and sorry to go on a little bit of a run of conversation here, but two ways is having really efficient electric heat. And the way that we're doing that is through heat pumps, or we are doing something that's called heat recovery, where we're actually able to secure useful heat off of another process. So we don't even need to actually manufacture any net new heat, rather we're recovering it and making it useful to displace natural gas.
PS: Great. That was a really interesting example, and I've heard some other examples of the heat recovery used in industry. It's a very interesting way to fight that battle with power. There's also questions about the reliability of the power grid that we have right now, and as we put more on it, it's only going to get more stressed.
Alright, well, let's look at a specific customer example. As I understand, you work with a company called EnerSys. They're a battery manufacturer. So, can you talk about some of the ways that you're working with them to eliminate their direct fossil fuel use by, I believe, 2040 is their goal?
TJ: That is their goal. And you happen to pick one of my favorite clients to speak about, which is EnerSys. They're in a unique position. They are a climate technology company, and they manufacture batteries. And going back to what you said, Anna, in terms of the reliability of the grid, battery storage and electrical battery storage is a huge enabler in terms of the reliability of the grid. So the reality is, if we move to an electrified economy, EnerSys is critical within that economy. From a business imperative standpoint, they're going to be successful within that economy because there's more demand for their product. So they do have a really ambitious goal of getting off of fossil fuels by 2040, and the way that we're working with them goes back to the foundations of understanding the asset inventory within their 25 or so manufacturing sites across the globe. They've gotten to the exact point of knowing how many assets they have (it's a little bit north of 500) that are using fossil fuels today. So having a plan and a solution for each of those assets. Assets are very different, especially in terms of the amount of natural gas they consume, and the technologies that are available to have a lower carbon solution, but they're looking at an asset-by-asset level, and then also understanding all of the unique dynamics that you have in any given market. So a plant that's in Poland is going to have a different utility experience, different utility prices, different emissions factors, than one that's in Missouri, and they have to be able to make decisions at all these different levels of assets, plants, and then, ultimately, at the enterprise. What we're doing with them is we're working with them across all those levels and having a strategy to be able to align to their mission at each of them.
PS: That's definitely not a black and white journey across all of industry. It's very application specific, and like you said, needs a pretty intricate plan.
TJ: To get a little bit more tactical on where they're at, because I hit on the strategy side. They're at a point that we do see a lot of our clients are absolutely prioritizing Scope One reduction, but they're also looking at energy efficiency as a whole. And they're looking at energy efficiency as a whole, as an opportunity to create funding streams to help be able to support some of the electrification and Scope One decarbonization that might not have the clearest financials. So they're creating this award chest in terms of energy savings so that they can support sustainability initiatives that have a different financial outcome to them, but align to their overall mission.
PS: We hear a lot lately in the asset management world of manufacturing about energy at that system level, when it comes to talking about energy management or efficiency. Compressed air is always a focus in manufacturing, because it's typically the most wasteful. It's also the most ubiquitous across industry. But we're also hearing more about efficiency concerns with other equipment, like chillers and blowers, for example. So what does this say to you about industry and energy trends, and why is it important to understand how all that equipment is working together in a system as a whole?
TJ: I think we can go back to one of the strategies we talked about at the beginning, which is heat recovery. And you referenced compressed air. That's actually one of the systems that has the greatest opportunity for heat recovery off of it. Normally, with compressed air systems, we think about the waste coming through the leaks of that compressed air system, and absolutely that's a significant opportunity for energy optimization. But the reality is, the compressors that are running to create those PSIs have a ton of waste heat that are coming off of them, and there's an ability to be able to capture this waste heat. We've actually looked at this with EnerSys of capturing the waste heat and being able to put it into some other useful utility and allow you to reduce natural gas consumption. The waste heat is not going to be able to get to the ultra-high temps by itself, but it can do things like displace space heating requirements or domestic hot water requirements, if you're able to capture it and put it into a different utility. So you have this scenario where your compressed air system, all of a sudden, is supporting the ability to reduce the emissions and reduce the amount of natural gas on an HVAC system. You have to be able to look at the opportunities to connect your plant in that way to be able to get to what is the unicorn that everyone's looking for, which is beneficial electrification, where you're truly able to capture cost savings and emission savings and drive operational improvements at the same time.
PS: Yeah, in terms of the compressed air system, that really seems like a win-win, because it's so wasteful to begin with. If you can capture that and turn it back around to help the system, that will really go a long way.
TJ: Yeah, absolutely we agree.
PS: Well, Trevor, I want to thank you for joining me today and helping industry, I hope, understand a little better about electrification as part of decarbonization efforts. So thank you. Any last thoughts?
TJ: Yeah, I would just say thank you to you, Anna, and thank you to the industry as a whole for starting to really advance on this electrification journey. For those that have put net zero goals out there, which is many, the reality is you need to be talking about electrification now if you're going to hit those commitments. So I encourage you to continue to keep digging deep and look for really novel solutions.
About the Podcast
Great Question: A Manufacturing Podcast offers news and information for the people who make, store and move things and those who manage and maintain the facilities where that work gets done. Manufacturers from chemical producers to automakers to machine shops can listen for critical insights into the technologies, economic conditions and best practices that can influence how to best run facilities to reach operational excellence.
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About the Author
Anna Townshend
managing editor
Anna Townshend has been a journalist and editor for almost 20 years. She joined Control Design and Plant Services as managing editor in June 2020. Previously, for more than 10 years, she was the editor of Marina Dock Age and International Dredging Review. In addition to writing and editing thousands of articles in her career, she has been an active speaker on industry panels and presentations, as well as host for the Tool Belt and Control Intelligence podcasts. Email her at [email protected].