Revitalizing Your Energy Program

Abstract

Saving energy no longer enjoys the popularity it once did. Most companies have drastically reduced the scope of their energy programs and the personnel committed to that task. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate that enormous savings still exist, and to demonstrate a method for realizing those savings. This method that has worked very successfully for the past seven years at Dow's Louisiana Division in Plaquemine, Louisiana. It centers about an annual "Contest", but it is much more than that. It has become the focal point for most of the Division's projects and now includes not only energy savings, but yield increases, environmental improvements, waste reduction, maintenance cost reductions and some incremental expansions. The paper looks at how the Contest functions, highlighting the characteristics that seem to explain why it has succeeded where similar efforts have often failed.