More companies are seeing the energy saving benefits of a comprehensive energy management system, with some even going on to meet the requirements for the ISO 50001 Energy Management Certification. Amongst them is STMicroelectronics, whose all six of its silicon wafer manufacturing factories are ISO 50001 certified. This has led to an energy saving of 14 GWh, equivalent to about $2 million, in the 2013-2014 timeframe. Read more

ISO 50001 Energy-Management Certification Saves Tech Company $2M Per Year

By Linda Hardesty in Energy Manager Today (3 October 2013):

STMicroelectronics says that all six of its factories where it manufactures silicon wafers have achieved certification to the latest ISO 50001 energy-management standard.

The certification process involved developing tools to systematically measure the energy consumption of each piece of equipment, including buildings and chiller and compressed dry-air equipment, and to analyze the sites’ overall energy usage.

A common platform, which includes a documentation database, reporting tools and processes, has been developed and shared internally to establish and promote best practices.

ST estimates that the certification process will contribute to saving 14 GWh of energy and $2 million in the 2013-2014 timeframe.

ST’s Agrate site in Italy was the first to achieve the ISO 50001 certification, followed by Catania in Italy and ST’s other front-end sites in France (Crolles, Rousset, Tours) and Singapore (Ang Mo Kio). Each manufacturing site is committed to implementing energy-performance indicators to both monitor and optimize its consumption of electricity and natural gas and explore all opportunities to minimize the amount of energy used, reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Because STMicroelectronics develops products and technologies to enable low energy consumption for the end user, executive management felt it was complementary for its manufacturing sites producing those products to be ISO 50001-certified.

Superseding previous national and regional standards, ISO 50001, introduced in June 2011, is based on the four-step cycle (plan-do-check-act) to implement change and continuous improvement that is the basis of ISO 9001, ISO 14001, and other established management standards.

Source: www.energymanagertoday.com/