Tuning Up, Turning Off

Consumers are being endlessly lectured these days on how to save energy by turning down thermostats and turning off lights, but they use only 30% of the nation's energy; businesses gulp more than half. Corporate executives have been quite as wasteful as consumers; some experts estimate that as much as 20% of all the energy used by industry could be saved rapidly by more economical use, with little or no loss of productivity. Now, spurred by the scarcity and rising cost of fuel, a growing number of companies are turning to conserving power with the zeal that they once devoted to cutting inventory. They are finding the savings surprisingly easy.

Tuning Boilers. Many companies have found that they can trim energy use 5% to 10% or even more without spending any money, by such simple measures as reducing lighting, lowering temperatures, ensuring that doors and windows stay shut, leaving unused space unheated, tuning boilers and similar equipment to maximum efficiency, and turning off unused machinery. In Bloomfield, Conn., for example, Connecticut General Insurance Co. has reduced lighting by two-thirds in the executive offices of its sprawling building. Like hundreds of other firms, Connecticut General also has reduced lighting in the cafeteria, hallways and the parking lot, cut down the use of fans and air conditioning, and turned off some escalators. As a result, fuel consumption at the site has been reduced by 25%. The Martin Marietta aerospace plant in Denver last week removed every other light in its hallways, and turned off almost all remaining lights after 6 p.m. Refrigeration has been disconnected on all drinking fountains, hot water throughout the plant has been cut from 140DEG to 120DEG, and the pressure that drives factory air tools has been dropped by 151bs.

As energy prices skyrocket, some companies are going further and making capital outlays-some minor, some potentially sizable-to save more fuel. Some plants began investing even before the fuel shortage. Four years ago an RCA Corp. cabinetmaking plant in Monticello, Ind., converted its heating systems to burn 30 to 40 tons of its own waste wood daily. Dow Chemical Corp. has cut steam consumption in half at one of its plants, partly by installing a more efficient heat-transfer process. The investment of $44,000 was offset within a year through lower energy bills. Alcoa has developed a new smelting process that is expected to cut by 30% the amount of electricity needed to produce a pound of aluminum. Since the aluminum industry is one of the most voracious users of power, the process may prove especially valuable.

Building design is receiving considerable attention. As many as 30% of the buildings constructed in recent years use a "reheat" cooling technology. Under the serpentine logic of this system, air is chilled to the lowest degree needed to cool the warmest part of the building; it is then reheated to cool those parts that are not so warm. But soon much more new construction will employ a "variable-volume" system in which dampers are adjusted by thermostats to vary the amount of air distributed. The dampers simply send warm areas the maximum amount of cool air possible, while lessening the flow to the coolest areas. A new U.S. General Services Administration building in Manchester, N.H., will use 60% less energy than an average building of the same size. Plans call for the north wall to be windowless and insulated more heavily than any of the other walls; the south wall will have fins that shade in the summer and allow absorption of solar heat in winter. East and west walls are designed to divert winds, which usually come from one of those two directions. Thus a minimum of heat will be lost to the breezes.

Efficiency Expertise. Power companies often act as a spur to conservation by providing companies with expertise-often the only comprehensive knowledge available. A year ago the Northern Illinois Gas Co. near Chicago began a program aimed at its industrial customers. "They use the most energy, and they are the most wasteful," explains Bud Wulff, an engineer assigned full time to the project. As a result of testing for efficiency and recommending various economies, the utility has been able to effect 30% to 40% savings in gas usage at some firms.

But some other power companies are less than exemplary. Chicago's Commonwealth Edison has adopted a "We trust them" attitude toward industrial customers, which account for about two-thirds of its sales, while distributing 140,000 booklets called 101 Ways to Conserve Electricity at Home.

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