Schneider, Siemens recognized at 2014 Platts Global Energy Awards

Feb. 7, 2015 – Two top industry players were honoured for their “leadership, innovation and performance” in the energy industry at the 2014 Platts Global Energy Awards.

Schneider Electric picked up the Stewardship Award Efficiency Initiative – Commercial End-User for its efforts to conserve and manage energy consumption at more than 300 company facilities around the world.

“Energy efficiency is in our DNA, so we are especially proud to be recognized for the extensive efficiency programs we’ve implemented in our own facilities,” said Chris Hummel, Schneider’s chief marketing officer. “We continuously help companies and individuals across the globe get more value out of the energy they consume while reducing emissions, and this honour from Platts is strong recognition of that record of achievement and our commitment to adopt best practices internally.”

Recognized for its Energy Action program, Schneider embarked on a plan in 2011 to employ its own best practices and develop new energy savings techniques at its own facilities around the world through a focus on innovation, sustainability and operational excellence. By the end of Q3 2014, it exceeded program targets by reducing core energy consumption by almost 13 per cent.

Meanwhile, Siemens Energy received the Leading Technology Award for Commercial Application for its Clean-Ramp technology, which it says allows plants to put megawatts on the grid faster with reduced startup emissions.

A successful demonstration of Clean-Ramp took place in June 2014 at California’s NRG El Segundo Flex-Plant combined cycle facility. During the first run, the steam turbine was kept off-line while the gas turbine was ramped continuously at more than 30 MW/min, while the gas turbine load ranged between about 115MW (about 65 per cent load) and 180MW full base load, said the judges. Together with an air-cooled heat exchanger for steam condensing, the Flex-Plant provides a net efficiency of nearly 49 per cent, said Siemens.