Glass plants, which are heavy consumers of energy, are subject to strict regulations. To anticipate regulatory changes and avoid penalties, these companies must regularly report on improvements in their energy performance. Interview with Laurent Taquet, Energy Manager at Saverglass.
ISO 50001 certification provides the basis for efficient energy management. For sites connected to the electricity transmission network (RTE), the Energy Performance Plan (EPP) testifies to the implementation of the energy strategy with the authorities through a action plan meeting an energy savings target over the next 5 years. Lemon Energy helped Alphaglass, one of the Saverglass Group's three glassworks in France, to implement its Energy Performance Plan.
How did this Energy Performance Plan come about?
Alphaglass is, to date, the only Saverglass Group site to be ISO 50001 certified. This makes the site the group's spearhead for monitoring its energy performance. ISO 50001 certification, and the filing of its PPE enable Alphaglass to benefit from an 81% reduction on TURPE (Tarif d'Utilisation du Réseau Public d'Électricité) for its connection to the RTE electricity transmission network.
To continue to benefit from this tariff after a change in the regulations, Alphaglass had to provide evidence of the implementation of an energy performance plan (PPE) to the DREAL (Direction Régionale de l'Environnement, de l'Aménagement et du Logement).
The Alphaglass team did not have sufficient knowledge and resources to work on this type of regulatory project, and the deadline set by the DREAL was very short. As the other two Saverglass sites were accompanied by Lemon Energy for regulatory energy audits, it was natural that we called on Lemon Energy for this project.
How did the project go?
The DREAL's requests were in line with what we had already put in place for ISO 50001 certification:
- A team dedicated to energy management was already set up, made up of representatives from all departments : plant manager, manufacturing manager, melting manager, maintenance manager...
- Information and technical data had already been collected, such as consumption, costs and the distribution of plant consumption by use.
After reviewing the technical data, the Lemon Energy team came to the site to complete the analysis with field observation and lead a workshop with the Alphaglass energy team in order to build a detailed plan comprising 26 actions.
External intervention can bring new ideas on utilities, but at the production tool level, the levers are not obvious and some of the ideas can only come from the site itself. Lemon Energy was able to support the emergence and formalization of these ideas from the field.
The Lemon Energy team then defined the reference year and formalized the Plan de Performance Énergétique in a document that met the DREAL's specifications. Lemon Energy also provided us with files to enable the Alphaglass energy team to monitor the action plan independently.
As a result, we were able to file the PPE on time in 2021. Because we had to move fast, this plan was filed with errors. Now, response times from the DREAL can take several months.
Lemon Energy was able to file the PPE on time.
Lemon Energy therefore continued its support in 2022 to rework the PPE and correct these errors in collaboration with our teams. Lemon Energy facilitated a new work session with Alphaglass to establish the source documents that now enable the energy team to respond to small requests from the DREAL autonomously.
Lemon Energy has continued to support our teams in 2022 to rework the PPE and correct these errors in collaboration with our teams.
The key to our confidence in Lemon Energy is this fluid support and the sharing of information that makes us autonomous.
What are the prospects following this project?
The DREAL requests an annual progress report with updated documents on the entire action plan.
Today, we benefit from the TURPE reduction, our performance plan is in place, and our documents more accurately meet ISO 50001 requirements.These three objectives have been fully met.
The EPP approach at Alphaglass is in line with the Saverglass Group's decarbonization roadmap. The decarbonization initiative is partly financed by specific CEE (Certificats d'Économies d'Énergie), for which only ISO 50001-certified EU-ETS sites are eligible. As part of the Factory 4.0 initiative, we aim to instrument all plants on energy, process, production costs, yields, etc.
The method and tools deployed thanks to Lemon Energy for the Alphaglass site enable us to move faster towards ISO 50001 on other sites, and create emulation between plants by digitizing the monitoring of their energy performance.
