by Brianna Crandall — March 11, 2015—The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced on Monday that 70 manufacturing plants have achieved Energy Star certification for their superior energy performance in 2014. Together, these manufacturing plants saved a record amount of energy, cut their energy bills by $725 million, and reduced greenhouse gas emissions by more than 8 million metric tons—demonstrating that making sustainability and energy efficiency improvements is a smart business decision, says EPA.
Energy Star certified plants are independently verified on an annual basis to have reached the top 25 percent of energy performance for their industries nationwide. Among these are plants from the auto assembly, cement manufacturing, corn refining, food processing, glass manufacturing, pharmaceutical manufacturing, and petroleum refining industries.
Seven plants earned Energy Star certification for the first time:
- ConAgra Foods’ American Falls, ID, frozen fried potato processing plant
- ConAgra Foods’ Ogden, UT, cookie and cracker baking plant
- Essroc Cement Corp.’s Martinsburg, WV, cement manufacturing plant
- Essroc Cement Corp.’s Nazareth, PA, cement manufacturing plant
- Lehigh Cement’s Glen Falls, NY, cement manufacturing plant
- Lehigh Cement’s Leeds, AL, cement manufacturing plant
- Marathon Petroleum Corporation’s (MPC) Illinois Refining Division petroleum refinery
Since the inception of EPA’s Energy Star certification, a total of 139 manufacturing plants have achieved this distinction. (The list is searchable by state.) These plants have saved over 530 trillion British thermal units (TBtu) in energy, equal to preventing more than 36 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions and saving enough energy to provide the total yearly energy needs of approximately 3 million American households, calculates EPA.
EPA provides industry-specific Energy Star plant benchmarking tools to help industry measure energy performance. These are available or under development for more than 20 manufacturing sectors. Energy Star benchmarking tools enable companies to compare a plant’s energy performance against those of its industry and empower manufacturers to set informed improvement goals.
Established in 1992, the Energy Star energy efficiency label is now recognized around the world, and can be found on products in more than 70 different categories, 1.6 million homes, and 24,000 commercial buildings and industrial plants. For more information about Energy Star plant certification or for profiles of certified buildings and plants, visit the Energy Star Web site. To learn more about how Energy Star and industry work together, visit the program’s Industrial energy management site.
