Alliance of Ontario Food Processors

- Who We Are
- Board of Directors/Staff

Energy Pilot Project

Identifying Potential Energy/Cost Savings:
Monitoring and Tracking

In partnership with the Ontario Power Authority (OPA) and the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA) the Alliance of Ontario Food Processors embarked on a Pilot Project in 2007 to study the reduction of one of the most important costs of production - energy costs - and the feasibility of embedding a culture of energy and resource conservation in the food processing industry.

The first step was a Pilot Project to develop energy management training and with this the installation of utility metering and management systems to track consumption and record real savings in energy and resource conservation. Monitoring and Tracking (M&T) systems and the resulting Energy Management Plan to manage the results was the goal. One of the objectives of this Pilot Project was to determine the feasibility of implementing monitoring and tracking systems in a number of different food processing operations.

The Pilot execution resulted in outcomes that revealed a number of challenges to convince companies to implement an M&T system. Disappointingly, interest in the program from processors was low. Some of the conclusions based on the completion of the Pilot Project in December 2008 are listed below:

Smaller companies are focused on immediate cost saving and are not interested in longer term monitoring
There is little generic application of metering and targeting - specific situations in each production facility
Many companies look at M&T without a strategic plan or objective on how to use the data generated with an overall Energy Management Plan and therefore do not see the value
Monitoring and Tracking appears best suited to larger companies with automated processes or high volume production. The company must be large enough with a significant energy bill to make this
To get maximum attention and be given priority, Monitoring and Tracking of energy use must be clearly linked to other aspects of the operation such as maintenance, production increase and accountability rather than being focused only on energy conservation targets and objectives