Efficient innovation

• Producing high-performance materials requires massive amounts of power. That's why energy is one of the top five expenses for Saint-Gobain.
• To optimise operations and costs, the company decided to centralise and streamline its energy procurement.
• Formerly, each facility was responsible for its own energy buying. There was no standard process and the company had limited visibility into enterprise-wide consumption.
• To achieve its goal of cutting carbon emissions by 20% by 2025, Saint-Gobain also needed to improve plant-level efficiency and reduce its environmental footprint.

Improving efficiency and sustainability with EcoStruxure

Apps, Analytics & Services: EcoStruxure Resource Advisor, strategic energy sourcing
Edge Control: Modicon™ M580 process automation controllers
Connected Products: Altivar™ variable speed drives, Model 6 motor control centres, Premset™ MV switchgear, and Okken LV switchboards

• Saint-Gobain centralised and standardised energy procurement with expert support from the Schneider Electric team, including strategic sourcing, risk management, tariff analysis and invoice auditing.

• To track consumption and spend, the company now uses EcoStruxure Resource Advisor, cloud-based enterprise software that provides one view into energy and sustainability data and savings opportunities

• Within its factories, Saint-Gobain relies on Schneider Electric's edge control and connected devices that help gather the energy data necessary to optimise and actively manage consumption.

• Through a decade-plus partnership with Schneider Electric, Saint-Gobain has achieved savings worth millions of dollars, which the company can dedicate to research and development.
• In a prominent example, Schneider experts identified a savings opportunity at a site in North Carolina in the U.S. and helped the facility reduce its utility costs by 14%.
• Thanks to Schneider Electric connected technology, plant operators can track and modulate energy use based on the time of day, and trim consumption when grid-wide use and prices peak.