Energy efficiency engagement training in SMEs: A case study in the automotive sector

Energy efficiency requirements in Europe are set by the Energy Efficiency Directive, considering energy audits as a systematic procedure to determine the savings in energy costs. These kinds of tools provide useful information for companies to identify opportunities for the improvement of their energy performance. However, the regulation is only applied for non-SMEs in Europe, which make up only 0.2% of the total number of European companies. Compared in terms of the value added or the number of employees, these companies are still at a lower percentage than small and medium enterprises. The wide versatility of small companies, however, makes it difficult to de-termine a regulation that promotes the objective of the Directive in a uniform way. For this reason, one aspect that is being worked on with small companies is raising awareness and training in energy aspects, encouraging them to carry out activities to improve their energy performance based on their own initiative. In this regard, within the framework of an H2020 research project based on the automotive sector, the E2DRIVER project, a collaborative–cooperative training methodology has been designed to motivate and empower the key actors within a company. This paper describes the methodology and its implementation in different companies in European countries, providing some representative results

Energy efficiency from farm to fork? On the relevance of non-energy benefits and behavioural aspects along the cold supply chain

Though cooling is an ancient concept to preserve food, only modern artificial cooling and freezing made it possible to offer high quality food worldwide and independently of the season. This makes cooling and freezing important energy end-uses in the food industry: they are responsible for about 30 % of electricity consumption. Energy efficiency could thus be of remarkable importance for companies operating in this field. Energy efficiency measures can entail, additionally to the evident energy savings, non-energy related benefits, e.g. enhanced competitiveness, reduced maintenance requirements or an improved working environment. Such factors have been identified as important for affecting the assessment of energy efficiency measures. When it comes to whole cold supply chains, behavioural and organizational aspects seem to be important for decision making about energy efficiency as well, because factors affecting decisions in individual organizations may also occur as cross-organizational issues. Existing analyses on both nonenergy benefits and behavioural aspects related to energy efficiency mainly focus on individual companies and hardly touch whole supply chains, in particular from food industry. To contribute to closing this research gap, this paper investigates both aspects more in-depth along the cold supply chain of the food sector, thereby moving from the single company perspective to a full supply chain assessment. For this purpose, 61 semi-structured interviews with companies active in cold supply chains were carried out across various member states of the European Union. Findings from the interviews suggest that energy efficiency is presently considered more strongly in individual companies than along entire cold supply chains. While non-energy benefits appear to be relevant for both individual companies and the cold supply chain as a whole, awareness along the chain seems to be lower in comparison. Further complexity along the cold supply chain seem added by the prevalence of various behavioural aspects which may impede an easy implementation of energy efficiency measures

Improving Cold Chain Energy Efficiency: EU H2020 project for facilitating energy efficiency improvements in SMEs of the food and beverage cold chains

Industry has a substantial potential to improve its energy efficiency. The food and beverage sector and its cold supply chain are responsible for more than 10% of the total final energy consumption of the EU-28. Accurate refrigeration is required for optimal preservation of perishable goods and can be up to 85% of the food and beverage sector's total final energy consumption. High demand for refrigeration has adverse environmental effects such as direct emissions from refrigerant leakage and indirect emissions related to electricity or fossil fuels consumption. The Horizon 2020 project ICCEE (Improving Cold Chain Energy Efficiency) aims to support and advice small and medium enterprises (SME) from the food and beverage sector's cold chains to implement energy efficiency measures (EEMs) by an energy mapping of the cold supply chain including its transport and storage activities. Shifting from the myopic single company perspective to the chain assessment leads to increased energy savings potentials and reduced implementation gaps of EEMs