Saving energy

The diversification topic has been discussed a number of times in the past year in the printing industry trade press.  As the industry sector comes under continuous pressure in a changing media world the opportunities for growth are more difficult to find.  Many firms talk about implementing a diversification strategy, but in reality all they end up doing is the same thing, just a little differently.  A bit like getting your car resprayed and pretending it's a new car. 

Many companies in recent history have been down the diversification route with great success and others have failed, so just having a diversification strategy is hardly enough.  One of the more exciting diversification strategies in the print sector is the new BJ Ball venture into environmental services and technologies in their E3 business group.  E3 is short for Energy, Efficiency and Environment.

The key to the business is that businesses in the print sector are doing what firms in almost every other industry sector are doing, that is trying to become more sustainable both financially and environmentally. In other words attempting to satisfy two different stakeholders groups at the same time. Last year one large business media group suggested that the world’s first trillion dollar business would be an environmental services company. Although it is unlikely that company will be BJ Ball it does reflect the magnitude of the business opportunity that exists in creating and marketing environmental solutions.

[Related: More environment news]

The key part of the E3 business is based around measuring the impact of energy waste in any business.  Some academic research has proposed that a little more than 40 per cent of the energy that is produced by power stations is wasted or lost somewhere between making and using the electrical energy. It is possible to reduce the energy consumption of a business by 40 per cent or more with a number of different technologies such as lighting systems, variable motors, soft start motor controls, power factor correction and voltage stabilisation. The optimum combination of this list of technologies could savings to about a two to three year return on investment.  However, the best environmental technologies should be cash positive from the beginning.

E3 is a logical growth opportunity based out of the experience of printing and paper industry’s strong credentials in environmental performance and the ability of the industry to respond quickly and positively to stakeholder concerns around ecological issues. The association with forestry and trees in making and using paper puts the industry front and centre in the environment discussion around the world. Therefore BJ Ball’s deep understanding of these issues makes the move into a higher level environmental business a logical business opportunity across many different market sectors.

The first technology is phase voltage stabilisation, PVS out of the UK company Claude Lyons. It is a technology that was first developed in 1936 as a means of flattening the voltage supply that comes into a business site.

In studies that have been carried out by E3 around the Australian capital cities the fluctuation in voltage in individual business sites has jumped between around 238 to 260 volts in a matter of minutes.  This wild fluctuation can result poor equipment performance, maintenance and potential equipment failure, and in a worse case situation even equipment destruction.

The most significant benefit of voltage stabilisation technologies is in the area of equipment efficiency.  However, because of increasing energy costs over the past decade and even more to come in the future the voltage stabilisation technology will also greatly reduce the energy used by the firm.  The savings can be significant and the return on investment can be as low as two years.

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