We know a lot about producing energy. But we've also made it our business to save energy.
Energy efficiency is one of our most economical sources of new energy. Imagine this: A reduction of just 5 percent in global energy use would save the equivalent of more than 10 million barrels of oil per day—enough energy to power Australia, Mexico and the United Kingdom.
Using energy more efficiently makes sense for many reasons, including:
- It reduces carbon emissions.
- It lowers costs.
- It conserves the supplies we have.
Helping Others to Save
We're an energy company with a business unit dedicated to helping others become more energy efficient. Since 2000, Chevron Energy Solutions (CES) has helped clients reduce energy use at their facilities by nearly 30 percent on average. CES customers are schools, colleges, government agencies and businesses, including some of our own business units. We work with our customers to improve energy efficiency and find ways to use renewable power to provide significant energy and cost savings each year. The money saved generally covers the cost of the improvements within a relatively short time, thereby providing ongoing financial benefits for the customer and improved health for the environment.
In 2010, CES announced three important projects. The City of Brea Energy Efficiency and Solar project in California is expected to bring the city more than $13 million in net energy savings over the life of the project. The Marine Corps Logistics Base Albany Landfill Gas project in Georgia will produce 1.9 megawatts of renewable electric power and steam by burning gas generated by a nearby landfill. CES also built a 6,800-ton chilled water plant as part of the University of Utah Thermal Storage and Central Plant project.
Lowering Our Energy Costs
At Chevron, we're practicing energy efficiency.
To help measure our progress, we established the Chevron Energy Index in 1992. Since then, we have increased the energy efficiency of our global operations by 33 percent.
We've achieved these savings in big and small ways.
We created the position of Corporate Energy Coordinator to lead the company's energy efficiency efforts. The coordinator develops and improves best practices that can be shared among business units and conducts energy reviews to assist in prioritizing conservation opportunities across the company.
We've also invested in projects to reduce the amount of energy we use in our operations.
Two Chevron facilities in Houston received silver and gold certification for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) in 2011 and 2010. Developed by the U.S. Green Building Council, LEED is an internationally recognized certification system that verifies a building or community was designed and built to be environmentally sustainable. At the time of certification, one of the Houston offices was the largest building ever to have achieved LEED silver designation for commercial interiors.
The people of Chevron make energy efficiency a constant priority. We do it with simple, everyday acts, such as constantly maintaining our equipment so that it runs smoothly, and with complex projects, such as building high-efficiency power plants.
Generating Electricity More Efficiently
Worldwide, Chevron operates cogeneration units at refineries, production facilities and other sites, with a combined electrical generating capacity of about 3,500 megawatts. Cogeneration is a fuel-efficient and environmentally friendly process to produce steam and electric power simultaneously. These units, also referred to as combined heat and power units, generate electricity about twice as efficiently as the average power supplied by a local utility company.
Our Kern River Cogeneration Co. facility in California, a joint venture with Edison Mission Energy, was California's first large cogeneration facility, with a generating capacity of 300 megawatts.
We built an $80 million cogeneration facility in El Segundo, Calif., to provide electrical and steam power for our refinery there. We're using cogeneration to produce additional electricity from energy that would otherwise go unused at several of our refineries.
We also developed and installed California's first megawatt-class hydrogen fuel cell cogeneration plant at Alameda County's Santa Rita Jail. The 1 megawatt project provides half of the facility's annual power needs and is saving county taxpayers more than $260,000 a year. By reducing the facility's demand for utility-provided power, the fuel cell plant offsets more than 3,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions each year.
Conservation and energy efficiency are powerful tools for running our business—and for helping others run theirs.
Updated: June 2011