15/11/2006

The goal of the EMS-Textile project is to save energy in textile industries and other industrial sectors through better energy management. The said project is co-sponsored by the European programme Intelligent Energy Europe and is coordinated by "SIGMA Consultants" - a Greek company of engineering consultants. Also participating in the project are organisations from Spain, Portugal, Bulgaria and Greece (SIGMA Consultants as well as the Hellenic Fashion Industry Association).

Energy management aims at the production of goods with the lowest possible energy consumption, without affecting quality. Besides saving energy, good energy management contributes to improved company management and environmental protection, by reducing water and raw material usage, improving maintenance and use of production equipment and human resource management.

EMS-Textile provides standard tools and services, on the one hand, for the energy control of a corporation and the determination of specific energy consumption (namely the amount of energy that is consumed per unit of produced goods) and, on the other, for the implementation of procedures that improve energy efficiency and limit senseless energy consumption. Also, included in the project's goals are the use of proper practices and energy management tools in other industrial sectors and European countries, as well as the development of cooperation between Mediterranean textile industrial units.

According to international expertise, reasonable management can lead to a saving of 2% in energy consumption per year - a percentage which is usually sufficient for the installation of special software, meters and high technology control devices for the management of energy. Energy management can also be easily integrated into existing management systems (e.g. ISO 9001, ISO 14001) and it can improve the overall management of the company in general, with important benefits for environmental protection as well.

As part of the EMS-Textile framework, energy checks were carried out at corporations in all the countries participating in the project. The conclusions from the comparative evaluation indicate significant margins for improving the energy management of corporations that could lead to a long-term saving of up to 20% of energy consumption. In the case of Greece, we noted low performance regarding energy management - excluding investments, where the country's performance is higher than average, mainly due to the subsidised energy investment programmes.

Source: SIGMA Consultants