Moving Towards the Age of Efficiency from Plant to Plug™

“Companies must choose-through their sustainability programmes, priorities, and investments-whether they will help achieve the Age of Efficiency or allow today's and future generations to sink into energy anxiety”

World energy consumption has risen 45 percent since 1980 and it is projected to be 70 percent higher by 2030. Human energy is limitless, but today the earth’s energy is not.

The Efficiency Imperative has four distinct areas of opportunity, each with specific obstacles:

• Generation is hobbled by CO2 emissions, capacity constraints, and low adoption of renewables.
• Transmission is constrained by capacity, inefficiency, and political issues.

• Factories, buildings, and data centres have capacity constraints, efficiency losses from poor system design, and lack of standardisation as key barriers.
• Point-of-use lacks efficiency, manageability, and communications with the grid.

Schneider Electric has studied this landscape and decided to participate from Plant to Plug. At the heart of its strategy is the simple and powerful idea that using natural resources more productively and efficiently is both profitable and better for the environment. This model will drive the creation of a new category of company with new technology and new services that deliver Intelligent Energy.

EcoStruxure™ is an example of Schneider Electric's recent investments and ongoing execution focused on helping individuals and organizations get more from their energy with solutions that make their businesses more productive and sustainable. To that end, in June 2009 the company also launched Energy University™, a vendor-neutral, online educational community that provides the fundamentals needed to implement successful energy efficient solutions scaling various applications.

EcoStruxure™: Active energy management architecture
The incredible advances of the industrial revolution have delivered benefits and some troubling side effects: to start, the inefficient energy generation system. While the global community unites to fix, in the next 10 years, the CO2 mistakes of the last 50, one thing is clear - we need new solutions, new thinking, and new companies to take us into a world where we can truly do much more while consuming less.

The solutions to the energy challenge are multiple and complex. These solutions rely on a stronger and more efficient collaboration among the key stakeholders (facility and building managers, IT managers, factory supervisors, plant engineers).

A true understanding of energy management reveals that energy efficient components are now the entry fee for the game, not the game-changer. The levels of efficiency required must involve system dynamics across segments, platforms, and providers like never before.

Practically, what is at stake is enabling the convergence of the best expertise in the management of power, white space, process and machines, building control, and security to find the Intelligent Energy management solutions. EcoStruxure is the ecosystem that allows this convergence by enabling a guaranteed compatibility among Schneider Electric five domains of expertise - energy and infrastructure, industry, data centres and networks, buildings, and residential.

Efficiency achievement means all forms of energy waste - from electricity to water to mechanical and beyond - are captured and mitigated. EcoStruxure is not a product but an approach to creating Intelligent Energy management systems that are simplified, save money, and most importantly, reduce waste.

This agile architecture brings optimised systems within reach of a wider audience because of its compatible product designs and open-platform software. It does provide end-users with the critical tools to reduce their time to design and integrate, reduce capex as well as opex.

Companies must choose - through their sustainability programmes, priorities, and investments - whether they will help achieve the Age of Efficiency or allow today's and future generations to sink into energy anxiety. EcoStruxure, a point of focus for Schneider Electric R&D efforts and a nucleus for partnership opportunities, will soon become a symbol to the market of guaranteed efficiency savings of more than 30 percent.

Energy University™ Drives Energy Management Awareness and Education
Because there is a significant opportunity for sustainable energy savings using technology that is available today, in June, 2009 Schneider Electric launched Energy University™, www.myenergyuniversity.com. Energy University is an online educational program that provides the training needed for professionals interested in understanding and monitoring their company's energy use, making improvements, and implementing energy efficient solutions. The courses are designed to help anyone involved in the decision-making, management, planning, design, or construction of any space that consumes energy. Energy University's curriculum is product-agnostic and focuses on the critical concepts and best practices necessary to achieve a high degree of expertise in energy management.

Energy University's foundational courses include topics such as:

• Energy Efficiency Fundamentals
• The Economics of Energy Efficiency
• Going Green with Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)
• Alternative Power Generation Technologies 
• Data Center Efficiency: Reducing Electrical Power Consumption
• Lighting Basics for Energy Efficient Applications

As the demand for new technologies and knowledge increases, Energy University will be incorporating additional courses to the program. Each course can typically be completed in less than one hour and the added ease of an online platform makes learning convenient and accessible from any internet-ready computer. The self-paced learning experience is enhanced by an accompanying quiz for success measurement and preparation for the certification exam. The certification will require users to complete the specified training, pass a high-stakes exam, and be competent in a wide variety of energy management issues so they are able to advocate for energy efficiency as a method of reducing costs and improving business performance.

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