St Marys Cement Bowmanville plant achieves Gold Award Certification in Energy Excellence

St Marys Cement plant in Bowmanville – the tour site for the 2015 IEEE-IAS/PCA Conference – held a celebration yesterday marking the receipt of the Gold Award Certification in Energy Excellence. This programme tests energy management processes and performance and is one of the most thorough programmes of its type worldwide. More than 160 energy management criteria are assessed, and the programme is independently moderated and validated by the UK’s National Energy Foundation.

St Marys Bowmanville plant is being recognised for energy conservation performance and the successful way in which it has integrated energy management into all aspects of its operations. These efforts have added $10 million to its bottom line and the plant is on track to reduce its energy bill by $1 million again this year. The plant achieves these savings through an integrated and balanced approach of smart energy buying, matching energy-intensive plant operations with off-peak rates, common sense energy conservation practices and other plant-based initiatives.

The award was presented by John Pooley, UK-based Chief Assessor for the Certification in Energy Excellence. "The Bowmanville facility is one of the largest cement plants in North America with a rated capacity of over 1.8 million metric tonnes of product. As we all know, cement plants consume significant amounts of energy, but few other industrial operations in the world have come close to achieving the same level of integration in energy savings,” he said.

Marty Fallon, CEO of St Marys Cement, Celso Martini, VP Cement Operations, and Fabio Garcia, Manager of Plant Operations, accepted the award on behalf of St Marys.

Mr. Fallon observed, "St Marys is extremely proud of the effort, ingenuity and technical expertise deployed by the men and women working here to achieve the direct savings and establish systems to keep our energy purchase prices as low as possible. The energy reductions at this plant are getting more and more attention as a benchmark in sustainability criteria for the entire sector. In fact, next year this plant will be the featured site visit during the 2015 North American Cement Industry Conference."

Celso Martini also praised the efforts of the Bowmanville plant staff, and added: "It is also important to recognise the positive roles of the Ontario Power Authority (OPA) and the Independent Electrical System Operator (IESO). An important early step was to engage 360 Energy of Ancaster Ontario to help us become the first industrial operation of any type in North America to achieve ISO 50001 certification."

St Marys Cement - Bowmanville Plant Manager Fabio Garcia concluded by saying, "Let me repeat, without cooperation and buy-in from the entire St Marys team this could not be accomplished. I want to especially commend the energy management and conservation committee, that we call E=MC². With representatives from Finance, HR, Environment, Quality Control, Maintenance, Mining and Production departments, the committee identified and acted upon over 100 separate energy efficiency initiatives. The magic of the E=MC² approach was many of the energy savings required little capital expenditure or were done at no cost."

Since the committee’s inception, St Marys Cement - Bowmanville Plant has reduced energy usage by a total of 171 429 MW, which is sufficient to provide power to 3819 homes. This energy savings lowered CO₂ emissions by 31 886 t, equivalent to the removal of 9135 cars from the roads.

Read the article online at: https://www.worldcement.com/the-americas/30052014/st_marys_cement_bowmanville_achieves_energy_excellence_277/