Efficiency improvement has been the keyword in industry developments for years, leading to the evolution of highly sophisticated process and quality optimization concepts. Recently, however, socio-political and economic circumstances have led to a more holistic view of economic efficiency: Energy cost savings, sustainability, and resource efficiency have become the dictates of the moment.

The novelty of this trend, however, is still well observable throughout industry. When comparing the technical extent of modern shop floor control to the data processing possibilities in energy resource management, a tremendous need to catch up can be identified within the latter field. In the prevailing situation, corporations still have to face a lack of transparency as key consumption figures are hardly accessible and as the capacity-pricing on the part of energy suppliers is still inflexible and only partly comprehensive. Simultaneously, significant cost-saving potentials are simply missed by the corporations themselves as energy cost contributions are hardly taken into account.

Examining these circumstances against the background of decreasing fossil energy sources and of the pending denuclearization, energy prices and their contribution to overall production costs can be expected to increase continuously. Hence, energy efficiency management systems and applications will be a necessity to reduce the negative consequences of any such cost side development and to thus lever overall performance. Further, the extension of the power and energy supply system towards an intelligent, data generating power grid of complete, flexible control (smart grid) paves the way for economically valuable analysis of a corporation’s energy consumption and its economic relevance.

IBS smart efficiency is an energy efficiency management system which captures, analyses, and optimizes a corporation’s energy profile intelligently. It does not only proactively derive measures to enhance energy efficiency, but it also enables a holistic view on energy resource characteristics. Hence, IBS smart efficiency helps generate optimization schemes with regard to subsidies, to favorable purchases of emission allowances, to consumption rates that are compliant with environmental and political requirements, and other energy related considerations.

In order to do so, data that has been collected throughout the production process, either on the shop floor or by digital electricity meters (smart meters), is processed and turned into valuable, representable information by IBS smart efficiency. Throughout Germany, IBS smart efficiency is the very first energy efficiency management system that also integrates relevant emission parameters in its optimization calculations (CO2 calculator).

Based on the systematic analysis of the history of consumption and of the instances of peak consumption, cost saving potentials as well as the potentials for further improvements can be identified and allocated specifically. Circumventing peak hours of power capacity utilization, identifying points of improper consumption or feeding in unused capacities are only some examples, illustrating the extensive possible applications offered by IBS smart efficiency.

As a result, IBS smart efficiency guarantees a transparent and comprehensive depiction of main drivers of energy costs and it thus increases the corporation’s resource planning reliability. At the same time, IBS smart efficiency is fully compatible with the interfaces of all relevant business systems and applications which assures the provision of complete information on resource and energy consumption.

With IBS smart efficiency, a holistic and exact documentation of a corporation’s energy costs (as well as product-specific energy costs) becomes possible for the very first time. This is due to the fact, that the given data collection and analysis as well as the performance optimization involve internal as well as external variables. Hence, a significant improvement of the corporation’s overall economic efficiency and profitability can be realized, rendering the following advantages:

• Improved operating efficiency 
• Cost savings and improved capacity utilization 
• Compliance with external regulations 
• Compliance with subsidy requirements 
• Minimization of business risk related to energy and resource shortages as well as to the climate change 
• Protection of brand reputation („green image“) 
• Improved business valuation with the „Corporate Carbon Footprint“ as an increasingly important business figure

Furthermore, the ongoing digitalization of power supplies leads to a strengthened position of corporations towards energy suppliers. This is due to the fact that the detailed documentation of consumption and its increased flexibility enable favorable, individualized price agreements. Hence, costs can be further decreased and the energy market will be liberalized in terms of pricing mechanisms. To conclude, IBS smart efficiency enables corporations to realize tremendous cost saving potentials with regard to energy resources, resulting in an increased economic efficiency and a sustainably levered overall business performance. Further information