Industrial Assessment Center Program

The purpose of the research reported here was to assess the leveraging benefits attributable to the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) Industrial Assessment Center (IAC) Program. The term leveraging as used in this study refers to any additional support received by a university-based, IAC-sponsored center that the center would not have received had the IAC Program not been in place. Twenty-two IACs provided information about 120 leveraging activities over the 1997-2001 period. IAC directors indicated that the support for 115 of these projects was linked to the existence of DOE's IAC Program and the experience gained from their participation in the program. Ninety-three of the IAC-influenced projects were quantified, for a monetary value of $5,948,931. The average annual leveraged support was $1,189,786 over the time frame examined. Typical contributors of leveraged support were state governments, utilities, industry, universities, and other DOE and federal agencies. Most of the support was provided to conduct assessments outside of IAC Program criteria (e.g., assessments of government buildings or large manufacturing plants). Significant leveraged support was also provided to IACs for educational activities--such as workshops, seminars, and training--and for miscellaneous energy-related technical projects.

The purpose of this study was to assess the career paths of alumni from the U.S. Department of Energy's Industrial Assessment Center (IAC) program. IAC was originally named the Energy Analysis and Diagnostic Center (EADC) program when it began in association with four schools in 1976. The current IAC program provides funding to 26 engineering colleges, located in centers across the United States, to conduct energy, waste, and productivity assessments for small- to medium-sized manufacturing establishments within their respective regions. Through part-time employment with the university, students receive training and in turn conduct assessments for local manufacturers, under the direct supervision of engineering faculty. Annually, IAC participants conduct over 700 assessments, and each assessment generates recommendations for energy savings, energy cost savings, and waste and productivity cost savings customized for individual clients. An earlier study determined that energy savings could be attributed to alumni of the IAC program who take their IAC experiences with them to the professional workplace. During their careers, the alumni conduct additional energy assessments as well as influence energy efficiency through design, teaching and training, and other activities. Indeed, a significant level of program benefits can be attributed to the alumni. This project addressed such specific questions as: How many years after graduation are IAC alumni involved in energy-efficiency activities? What different methods do they use to influence energy-efficiency decisions? To answer these questions, the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UT) surveyed IAC senior alumni, defined as those who graduated in 1995 or earlier. Section 2 describes the survey used in this research. The actual survey can be found in Appendix A. Section 3 describes our approach to data collection. Section 4 presents descriptive statistics about the senior alumni who responded to the survey. Section 5 begins with the presentation of two frameworks used to help analyze the data about alumni career paths and then presents the career path results. Section 6 offers concluding remarks.

The need for energy efficiency captured the attention of all sectors of our society in the 1970s when energy supplies dwindled and prices increased. Interest in energy efficiency continued during the 1980s primarily due to environmental concerns and secondarily because of economic and industrial competitiveness issues. Energy supply disruptions caused by hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and recent hikes in energy prices have generated a renewed interest in energy efficiency. An example of this renewed interest is that the U. S. Department of Energy (DOE) initiated, developed, and implemented a national campaign to save energy now in 2006. In the past, the industrial sector has responded to energy shortages and its price increases with varying effectiveness, but small and medium-sized plants generally lacked the resources to cope effectively. One of the U. S. government’s responses to this situation was to offer these small and medium-sized plants technical assistance such as Industrial Assessment Center (IAC) program. One such center was established at Bradley University in 1993. Since its inception, the Bradley University Industrial Assessment Center (BU IAC) has functioned very successfully. Periodically BU IAC has been doing an in-house critical review of its performance and effectiveness. These reviews included outcomes such as total assessment recommendations, (ARs); diversity of ARs; quantifications of identified opportunities to save energy, minimize waste, and enhance productivity; implementation rates analysis; and impacts on energy engineering education. The purpose of this paper is to describe the impacts of the Industrial Assessment Center program on energy engineering education. The impacts on employment, salaries, and job performance of BU IAC graduates are discussed in this paper. The impacts of the BU IAC in improving the quality of in-class instruction by its Director(s) are explained in this paper.

Creating linked datasets for SME energy-assessment evidence-building: Results from the U.S. Industrial Assessment Center Program

This report presents the results of an evaluation of the U.S. Department of Energy's Industrial Assessment Center (IAC) Program. The purpose of this program is to conduct energy, waste, and productivity assessments for small to medium-sized industrial firms. Assessments are conducted by 30 university-based industrial assessment centers. The purpose of this project was to evaluate energy and cost savings attributable to the assessments, the trained alumni, and the Websites sponsored by this program. How IAC assessments, alumni, and Web-based information may influence industrial energy efficiency decision making was also studied. It is concluded that appreciable energy and cost savings may be attributed to the IAC Program and that the IAC Program has resulted in more active and improved energy-efficiency decision making by industrial firms.

The Industrial Assessment Center (IAC) program at West Virginia University (WVU), which is funded by the Industrial Technologies Program (ITP) in the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), has provided a unique opportunity to enhance efficient energy utilization in small to medium-sized manufacturers. It has also provided training to engineering students in the identification and analysis of efficient energy use in each aspect of the manufacturing process and associated supporting elements. The outcomes of the IAC Program at WVU have assisted the manufacturers and the students in having a heightened sensitivity to industrial energy conservation, waste reduction, and productivity improvement, as well as a better understanding of the technical aspects of manufacturing processes and the supporting elements through which efficient energy utilization can be enhanced. The IAC at WVU has conducted 101 energy assessments from 2002 until 2006. The focus of the industrial assessments has been on energy savings. It has been the IAC’s interest to strongly focus on energy savings and on waste minimization and productivity improvements that strictly have an impact on energy. The IAC at WVU was selected as the Center of the year in 2005 from amongst 26 centers and has obtained a ranking within the top 5 in the previous few years. From 2002 to 2006, the total recommended energy savings produced by the IAC at WVU is 1,214,414 MMBtu, of which the electricity accounts for 93,826,067 kWh (equivalent to 320,226 MMBtu) and natural gas for 871,743 MMBtu. The balance is accounted for in savings in other fuels, mainly coal and wood. This results in an average recommended energy savings of 928,971 kWh from electricity and 8,631 MMBtu from natural gas per facility. The total CO2 emissions saved from 2002 to 2006 is 154,462 tons, with an average of 1,529.3 tons per facility. The average recommended energy cost savings per facility is $135,036. The overall implementation rate of the assessment recommendations is 60.6% for the 101 industrial assessments conducted since 2002. The implemented recommendations resulted in total energy savings of 62,328,006 kWh from electricity, 295,241 MMBtu from natural gas, and 43,593 MMBtu from other fuels, totaling 551,557 MMBtu. The average implemented energy savings per industrial facility is 5,461 MMBtu and the average implemented energy cost savings is $ 59,879. The average implemented energy and productivity cost savings exceeds the program average of $ 60,000 per assessment. The IAC at WVU has produced a variety of energy efficiency recommendations in areas of industrial energy consumption such as Boilers and Steam systems (19), Air Compressors (15), HVAC (4), Chillers (12), Furnaces and Ovens (17), Motors (8), Lighting (20), Insulation (3), CHP and Cogeneration (4), and Process Equipment (7). The project has benefited the public by enabling the reduction of CO2 emissions by 89,726 tons due to the implemented energy saving recommendations at 101 small and medium sized manufacturing facilities. Since CO2 is a green house gas, its reduction will improve the quality of the environment significantly. The reduction in operating costs for the manufacturing facilities in terms of energy cost savings will increase the manufacturing facilities’ profits and improve their competitive edge, thus causing possible expansion in the manufacturing activities, leading to increase in good paying jobs.

This report highlights the results of a comprehensive analysis of investment decisions regarding energy-efficiency measures at small and medium-sized manufacturing plants. The analysis is based on the experiences of companies participating in the DOE Industrial Assessment Center (IAC) program. The IAC program is a network of university-based centers that provides energy and waste assessments to small and medium-sized manufacturing plants. The purposes of this report are to do the following: (1) Examine what the data collected reveal about patterns of implementation of recommended energy- efficiency measures, (2) Evaluate how various factors, such as the type of industry, the characteristics of the manufacturing plants, or the cost of the measures, appear to effect implementation rates, (3) Examine reasons why recommended energy-saving measures are accepted or rejected.

This paper highlights the results of a detailed analysis of investment decisions regarding energy efficiency measures at small and medium-sized manufacturing plants participating in the US Department of Energy's Industrial Assessment Center (IAC) program. This paper is drawn from a larger study that found that most small and medium-sized plants participating in the IAC program will invest in an energy efficiency measure only if the investment's capital cost can be paid back in operational savings within two years. The most frequently recommended and implemented measures have payback periods of one year or less. Implementation rates appear to drop off only slightly with increasing payback periods. Moreover, the average payback period associated with implemented measures does not appear to increase with plant size or annual energy cost. First cost appears to be more important than payback period in determining whether a recommended measure will be implemented. For most recommended energy efficiency measures, a payback period of up to two years implies an implicit (real) discount rate of about 50 percent, which is higher than the values typically used to characterize industrial investment decisions in energy-economic models.

The need for energy efficiency captured the attention of all sectors of our society in the 1970s when energy supplies dwindled and prices increased. Interest in energy efficiency continued during the 1980s primarily due to environmental concerns, and secondarily because of economic and industrial competitiveness issues. Energy supply disruptions caused by hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and recent hikes in energy prices, have generated a renewed interest in energy efficiency. In the past, the industrial sector has responded to energy shortages and its price increases with varying effectiveness, but small and medium-sized plants generally lacked the resources to cope effectively. One of the U. S. government's responses to this situation was to offer these small and medium-sized plants technical assistance, such as the Industrial Assessment Center (IAC) program. The IAC Program has been successfully functioning during the past three decades. However, large energy users (LEUs) were not included in this program. Two years ago the U. S. Department of Energy (DOE) launched the SAVE ENERGY NOW (SEN) initiative to help American businesses, factories, and manufacturing facilities save energy and continue to thrive during times of diminished supplies and rising energy costs. Energy supply disruptions caused by hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and recent hikes in energy prices, are impacting everyone in the United States, including the nation's industrial sector. SEN was a part of the national campaign called Easy Ways to Save Energy unveiled by Secretary of Energy Samuel W. Bodman. As a key element of Save Energy Now, DOE sent teams of qualified efficiency experts to the nation's most energy-intensive manufacturing facilities to conduct 200 Energy Savings Assessments (ESAs) in 2006, and a similar number was done during 2007. The purpose of the assessments was to identify immediate opportunities to save energy and money, primarily by focusing on steam and process heating systems. The SEN program has been effective and successful mainly because it was based upon the applications of some software tools coming out of the Best Practices Program of the DOE, specifically two tools: the Steam System Assessment Tool (SSAT) and the Process Heating Assessment and Survey Tool (PHAST). This article describes some of the applications of PHAST to LEUs and explains the outcomes of these applications.

The work described in this report was performed under the direction of the Industrial Assessment Center (IAC) at University of Texas at Arlington. The IAC at The University of Texas at Arlington is managed by Rutgers University under agreement with the United States Department of Energy Office of Industrial Technology, which financially supports the program. The objective of the IAC is to identify, evaluate, and recommend, through analysis of an industrial plant’s operations, opportunities to conserve energy and prevent pollution, thereby reducing the associated costs. IAC team members visit and survey the plant. Based upon observations made in the plant, preventive/corrective actions are recommended. At all times we try to offer specific and quantitative recommendations of cost savings, energy conservation, and pollution prevention to the plants we serve.

Industrial energy efficiency decision making

This is a Final Technical Report of OKLAHOMA STATE UNIVERSITY - INDUSTRIAL ASSESSMENT CENTER, DOE AWARD NUMBER: DE-EE0007719. PROJECT PERIOD: OCTOBER 1, 2016, TO DECEMBER 31, 2021. This report provides a comprehensive summary of all work completed under this award.

This is the Final Report for the Louisiana Industrial Assessment Center for the period of 9/1/2002 through 11/30/2006, although we were still gathering data through 02/16/2007. During this period, our Industrial Assessment Center completed 109 energy assessments for manufacturing firms in our area, offered 3 Save Energy Workshops, taught 26 students (9 graduate and 17 undergraduate) energy management savings techniques and offered an Energy Management Graduate class three times. These 109 energy assessments made a total of 738 energy savings recommendations, 33 waste reduction recommendations, and 108 productivity improvement recommendations. These combined recommendations would save client companies more than $87,741,221.16, annually at the then current energy costs. If all of these recommendations were implemented separately, the implementation cost would have been $34,113,482.10 or a Simple Payback Period, SPP=4.7 months. Between 9 months and 12 months after the assessment, we surveyed the manufacturing firms to find out what they implemented. They had implemented approximately 50 percent of our recommendations at an annual saving of $25,867,613.18. The three Save Energy Workshops had an average attendance of twelve individuals. The three graduate Energy Management courses had an average attendance of eleven students.

This article discusses a software program that was developed at the University of Maine to assist manufacturers in minimizing waste and improving energy efficiency. The software combined the most common recommendations made in the US Department of Energy`s Industrial Assessment Center program in a user-friendly package that can be used by computer novices. It also includes ``wizards`` that serve as an expert system to lead the user through an assessment of their total facility. The program is interactive and based around the Windows 95 operating system. Once users enter the necessary data into the program, it will generate a report similar to those created by Industrial Assessment Centers. General code information will be covered with a discussion of some of the recommendations that are included.

This report documents work from the Industrial Assessment Center program at NC State University. The program is funded by the US Department of Energy Advanced Manufacturing Office. The IAC provides energy conservation assessments for small and medium sized manufacturers in NC, SC, and VA. Students are involved in all aspects of the assessment including the on-site visit, interacting with plant personnel, collecting data, performing engineering analyses on potential energy efficiency measures, and producing a technical report for the client.