Carestream Manufacturing Plant Reduces Energy Consumption by 21% in 5 Years
Energy Manager Today, August 2, 2017
Carestream, a provider of dental and medical imaging systems and IT solutions, has reduced energy consumption by 21% during the past five years at its Windsor, Colorado, manufacturing plant.
In the past two years alone, Carestream Colorado has reduced energy consumption by 5.4% at its Windsor manufacturing facility. The company’s goal is to achieve an additional 5% reduction in energy use from 2015 to 2020.
The Colorado plant achieved energy savings of 5119 megawatt hours over two years with several major renovation efforts, including:
- Plant engineers rebuilt a 40-year-old steam turbine chiller that significantly reduces electricity consumption; and
- Variable frequency drives were installed on four cooling tower fan motors, eight cooling tower supply pumps and three chilled water pumps to allow each system to use only the precise amount of energy required to obtain the desired flow of water for manufacturing operations.
In addition, Carestream recycles a variety of materials and works to control hazardous waste from product manufacturing and maintenance activities.
“We continuously examine our manufacturing processes and product components to identify areas where we can help preserve the environment,” said Cavan Kelsey, Carestream’s Corporate Environmental Health and Safety & Sustainability Director. “Our aim is to reduce energy use by increasing the efficiency of our operations even when we are adding additional equipment to achieve production goals.”
The plant’s efforts to reduce its energy consumption recently earned it a Colorado Industrial Energy Efficiency award from the Colorado Energy Office.