Energy Management Excellence award for Zeon

THIS year's award for Excellence in Energy Management, which recognises companies that have demonstrated a high level of commitment to excellence in energy management, has gone to Zeon Chemicals Singapore Pte Ltd.

The company has an energy management framework that covers all the departments in the organisation. Globally, the Zeon Group sets an energy target of one per cent energy reduction year-on-year. In Singapore, Zeon has set a goal to have at least one energy reduction project every year. A regular session chaired by the plant manager provides a platform to all employees to come forward to contribute their ideas and to discuss topics on improvements and energy reduction initiatives. This was the key enabler for the successful implementation of many of Zeon's past energy reduction projects.

Zeon says that it provides equal opportunities to all employees to level up their knowledge and skillsets in energy management. Apart from its staff attending external courses and in-house training, it went a step further and held its inaugural energy day last year.

This was a break from the usual classroom style learning. Through a series of fun activities and games, the event aims to educate Zeon's community on the importance and the benefits of energy efficiency, and also updates employees on the efficiency improvements that have been made in the plant.

"To be energy efficient has always been one of our key focus areas. Our company's philosophy is to contribute to the preservation of the earth and the prosperity of the human race. We aim to reduce the amount of energy we use and help alleviate global warming by promoting energy conservation activities that involve all employees," says Hiroshi Takegami, managing director of Zeon Chemicals Singapore Pte Ltd.

"In Zeon Chemicals Singapore, we have an energy management framework that encompasses all departments. Everyone has a part to play in energy conservation. To drive continuous improvement, we conduct regular PDCA (Plan, Do, Check, Act) meetings. These meetings provide a platform for our employees to share their ideas, engage in technical discussions and make proposals to the management on improvement opportunities in plant operation.

"We are happy and honoured to receive this recognition for our efforts," he adds.

Mr Takegami says the challenges of energy cost, energy security and global climate change impacts everyone.

Everyone has to do their part to mitigate these impacts even as the use of energy is unavoidable since it is a key ingredient to drive industrial processes and everyday lives.

"To be energy efficient means we can run our processes and produce the same high quality product with lesser impact on the environment. This will be from a practical approach perspective. An energy efficient system will have long-term benefits to mitigate these impacts on both businesses and the environment."

Asked to identify some of the benefits of being energy efficient and how businesses can promote energy efficiency in their own operating systems, he says that there are multiple ways to approach energy efficiency.

It all begins with a baseline study followed by data analytics to determine the potential opportunities.

Next, is to adopt a step-by-step approach when implementing energy reduction projects. This is to ensure that safety and quality are not compromised in any of the energy reduction initiatives.

"In the past few years, we have implemented improvement projects such as heat recovery from our process to reduce steam input for the distillation columns, optimising the chiller's running configurations to match the required cooling load by product grade, and turning off unnecessary pumps during product change intermissions," says Mr Takegami.

Around the plant, the office and the warehouse, the company is also progressively changing the lighting system to use energy efficient LED lights. All these steps have enabled Zeon to reduce its energy consumption.

"Moving forward, we continue to explore opportunities to make the plant more energy efficient. We are currently doing studies on the possibilities to install solar panels to further reduce our carbon footprint," adds Mr Takegami.

Zeon Chemicals Singapore is a subsidiary of Zeon Corporation in Japan. The Singapore plant produces synthetic rubber that is used to make eco-tyres which enables both low fuel consumption and good performance, leading to global CO2 reduction.