US DOE Better Plants Program Energy Treasure Hunt Exchange Toolkit

Abstract

The US Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Better Buildings, Better Plants Program works with manufacturing companies to improve their facilities’ energy efficiency. By partnering with the program, companies commit to long-term energy efficiency goals, typically 25% energy savings in 10 years. The program provides technical support to help partners obtain their goals and recognizes partners’ outstanding achievements. One of the technical support offerings from the program is the Energy Treasure Hunt Exchange In-Plant Training. The Treasure Hunt Exchange is an adaptation of the Kaizen methodology for energy efficiency originally developed by Toyota. DOE developed the Energy Treasure Hunt Exchange Toolkit to facilitate program partners’ execution of the energy treasure hunt processes. The toolkit covers three phases of an energy treasure hunt for all major energy systems: pump systems, fan systems, process heating systems, process cooling systems, steam systems, compressed air systems, lighting systems, and motor systems. All the tools included in the toolkit can be downloaded from the DOE website. The purpose of this report is to provide Better Plants partners an overview of the toolkit and detailed descriptions of its capabilities.