Industry is one of France’s most energy-consuming sectors, accounting for 25% of the country’s total energy consumption, just behind the tertiary and residential sectors (42%) and the transport sector (30%), and pulling in ahead of agriculture (3%)*.

From 2001 to 2012, energy intensity in the industrial sector dropped by 11%, illustrating a definite improvement in companies’ energy efficiency. This phenomenon is due to new developments in production tools and processes, and optimized energy consumption habits.

* Source: French Ministry for the Environment, Energy and the Sea - provisional data, May 2017
 

Energy transition has emerged as, and remains, one of the industry’s most pressing issues to be tackled.

Major challenges in industry

As a leading name in energy transition, Idex is on hand to support you in optimizing your energy consumption.

Whatever your production processes, industrial utilities such as steam, cooling systems, chilled water, compressed air, vacuum, superheated water and gas are all crucial to your everyday business activities. Yet these energies are a significant expense. Your industrial utilities production facilities should be optimized with a view to reducing your energy consumption levels and generating savings.

We’ve identified six major challenges in industrial utilities production in industry.

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Continuity of service and site security

Safeguarding continuity of service and site security

When you entrust your facility operations to a third party, the hope is that you can rely on high availability and swift responsiveness from the technicians working on your site, in addition to facility and staff security alike. Idex helps you tick all these boxes thanks to its team of qualified, ultra-available and responsive technicians.

Cost-efficient and high-quality

Ensuring your utilities remain available, cost-efficient and high-quality

Availability and quality of industrial utilities is a key priority in industry. These two aspects are crucial to ensuring a company’s production lines run smoothly and its business activities and performance are maintained. Idex deploys meticulous, regular maintenance checks to make sure your facilities are always available. Because these utilities are generally a significant source of expenditure for companies, Idex helps you make savings by optimizing your facilities and purchasing the energy you need on your behalf (electricity, gas, etc.).

Environement

Lowering your sites’ energy consumption levels and reducing your carbon footprint: when industry goes green

By optimizing their production and industrial utility distribution facilities,companies can significantly cut back on their energy consumption, making appreciable savings in terms of expenditure by doing so. Reducing their energy consumption levels allows them to decrease their carbon footprint, too. Idex supports you in optimizing your installations, assisting you in choosing renewable energies such as biomass and biogas to drastically reduce your environmental footprint.

Recovered energy

Drawing on all available recovered energy

Choosing to focus on recovered energy is another excellent way of reducing energy consumption. The idea here is simple, and involves recovering by-product energy: energy that goes unused and is therefore wasted at your production site, or a nearby site. The Ademe (France’s agency for ecological transition) estimates that “the country’s national industrial by-product heat energy totals 109.5 TWh, accounting for 36% of all combustible consumption in the industry” (https://www.ademe.fr/chaleur-fatale). Idex offers recovered energy optimization solutions, such as recovering heat generated by an incineration plant close to your production site.

Energy assets

Putting your energy assets to work

A company’s energy assets refers to all industrial utilities production facilities. Utilities are generally key to a company’s productivity, without being core business activities in themselves. Companies might choose to delegate facility management to a qualified third party in order to free them up to focus on what they do best. In doing so, they are given an opportunity to optimize production within these facilities, and make savings on production costs. Idex is a valued partner for all aspects of managing and overseeing industrial utilities facilities.

Performance criteria

Aligning with your performance criteria

Idex adapts to the performance criteria you set. It can sometimes be necessary to increase production capacity quickly. In these cases, Idex is able to offer tailored solutions that allow you to boost performance within your industrial utilities production facilities.

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Idex’s industry-focused solutions

We assist manufacturers working in a range of different sectors such as the paper, chemicals, automobile, aeronautics or agri-feed industries. Idex boasts extensive experience in handling issues linked to production continuity and production tool performance. Your goals are our utmost priority, and that of our 4,000 members of staff working across the country.

We offer high-performing, customized and scalable contractual services as part of our optimized management approach to handling utilities, cogeneration, design/production or renovation for power plants and facilities management (FM).

A snapshot of our industry clients

  • Bel, in Evron: having operated the fuel-powered steam production plant since 2005, in line with the BEL group’s ‘carbon neutral by 2025’ targets, Idex puts forward the idea of building a biomass boiler. The new steam plant currently under construction is set to operate at 82% via an energy mix featuring biomass and natural gas, which should prevent emissions of 10,000 tonnes of CO2 per year. This plant will be up and running in 2022.

  • BASF, in the Oise region: following a year of talks, a heating via cogeneration plant (heat production and electricity selling) contract is signed to power the site’s heating network and the various clients operating out of the chemical industrial platform. This partnership aims to overhaul the site’s energy blueprint and provide a high-performing, effective solution that draws on fossil energy from the natural gas already present at the site, thereby preventing it from being discharged into the environment without being recovered.

  • DSmith, in Saint Etienne du Rouvray: a cardboard and paper factory with a gas and coal-fired boiler, which requires very large quantities of water, energy (steam), and electricity in order to manufacture 280,000 tonnes of paper and cardboard per year.

Industry-related solutions

Find out more about our solutions