Challenge/Solution Case Study:

Reducing Energy Costs for an HVAC Equipment OEM

Result

EFI Group established a basis for immediate and future energy cost reduction actions for the client by linking specific processes to their respective utility costs, thereby enabling utility costs to be treated as a controllable operational budget item versus a relatively uncontrollable fixed budget item.

Challenge

Historically, utility costs were booked as fixed expenses and thus were difficult to control. The client sought to understand the impact of utility costs on the plant’s operational budget, as well as any opportunities to control those costs.

EFI Group’s challenge was to thoroughly understand the electrical power, natural gas, propane, water and fuel oil costs, which included:

Analyzing historical trends
Quantifying energy consumption for individual processes
Developing specific opportunities to reduce costs

Solution

EFI Group reviewed past utility statistics and provided graphical representations of both usage and costs, defining and quantifying major uses (contributors) to ensure an understanding of the specific areas/processes using utilities.

EFI Group then separated fixed costs (space heating) from variable costs (specific to an operating process), enabling a clearer picture of the effect of utility cost on changes in operational output, as well as the utility cost effect on the unit cost of the operation.

The team was able to define significant opportunities for cost reduction and calculate expected savings opportunities using the major components of utility use, primarily electrical power and natural gas costs.

Deliverables

Quantitative utility cost/usage baseline.
Universal understanding of the contributors to facility energy costs.
Specific opportunities for cost reduction.

We hired EFI Group to help us figure out a project and scope it, and I felt confident they would keep a keen eye on it. They had to deliver quickly and they did it well. They are especially good at project management when you don’t have the resources to do it internally. Reliability is the word I would use to describe EFI Group.

— Coatings Industry Professional

EFI Group is timely. We’ve had a lot of situations when we’ve been in a time crunch and they’ve responded very quickly. They are detail oriented and efficient. They’re a good group of people who also have a lot of strength in pre-engineering — the thought process to get to preliminary design and making sure we’ve investigated all the potential asks of a project to ensure we didn’t miss anything. They have great attention to detail up front which is very important to any project because having that detail-oriented deep dive into the pre-engineering phase sets the stage for the success of the rest of the project, making the process smoother and making it much easier to keep the project on schedule and on budget.

— Mike Quigley, Engineering & Maintenance Manager, Food Industry

I’ve worked with EFI Group for a while, so I know they have a good, knowledgeable staff. We know we’re going to get the results from them we expect. From my interactions with all the different EFI team members I’ve worked with, I know they have knowledge across many industries. Equally, I never have to follow up with EFI Group and, in some cases, they keep me on track.

— Ryan Fredsall, General Manager, Pacer Minerals LLC

We view EFI Group as a team that can dimensionalize our capability to execute projects. We can articulate what it is we want to do and they can take that input and run with it without much intervention from us. They’re able to move a project along independently and only engage us when it’s time to bring us up to speed or get more input to drive a project to conclusion. That’s one of the reasons I view them as an excellent contractor.

— Environmental Engineering Industry Professional

EFI Group has good engineers and good customer service. We know when we get an EFI engineer on a project, we’re going to a get a good job from them and it’s been a productive relationship for both of us — I genuinely like the people.

— Corporate Director, Project Management in Food & Flavors Industry

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Challenge/Solution Case Study:

Reducing Energy Costs for an HVAC Equipment OEM

Result

Challenge

Solution

Deliverables

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