Where the glass is always greener

For over 200 years, the Stoelzle Glass Group has been manufacturing high-end glass containers for the pharmaceutical, perfumery and cosmetics, spirits, and food and beverage industries. What sets Stoelzle apart is a strategic plan to reduce energy consumption at all seven of its production sites by 20 percent and cut its carbon emissions in half by 2030.

The centerpiece of this cross-factory process and energy optimization in production is an energy management system provided by Siemens – which, according to Stoelzle, is solely responsible for three to five percent of its energy savings.

During the implementation of the system more than 1,800 data points have been installed at the Köflach site alone, mainly in the energy-intensive areas, such as furnaces, feeders and annealing lehrs in order acquire, record, evaluate and visualize data. The overriding objectives are to improve efficiency and reduce costs. In concrete terms, improving e.g. energy efficiency means being able to identify inefficiencies and deviations early on and track and evaluate trends and changes in energy consumption.

Since the project was launched in early 2021, all seven factories have been taking steps to connect to the energy management system, with the Köflach site leading the way. By the end of 2022, all the other European factories will be connected during ongoing operation, and the U.S. location, which has been part of the company since March of 2021, will follow in 2023.

Back to Köflach: Because this location was the first to use the new system, initial options for energy and process optimization have already been verified and resulted in concrete measures:

• Water: Monitoring revealed that the amount of municipal water used can be reduced by 50 percent at the Köflach location.
• Annealing lehrs: With better temperature control, the generator sets can use 20 percent less natural gas.
• Compressed air: Thanks to the software, Stoelzle can now measure compressed air consumption at each machine and detect leaks.

Watch the video to get further insights on the project here:
https://lnkd.in/dV8erFUG

Source: Siemens