Businesses often question the profitability of energy efficient investments and the speed of their return on investment. The fact is, the areas of a business that can most benefit from efficiency investments are unique. This article from Control Engineering Magazine, lists these areas among the many that have the greatest potential of financial and energy savings:

• Supply voltage optimization
• Power management solutions
• Increased factory or process automation
• Intelligent lighting control and low-energy lighting
• Building controls
• Monitoring and targeting systems
• High efficiency motors
• Variable speed drives

Variable speed drives, which include variable frequency drives or VFDs, are one of the simplest energy efficient devices a business can invest in. Using customer experiences and conservative predictions, Control Engineering detailed the potential financial savings over 5 years with VSD installation for 10 countries. The United States shows the greatest potential for savings.

VSDs can reduce energy consumption by 70%, with the most receptive applications being pumps, fans and centrifugal compressors. Other assets that can make use of these drives include mixers, centrifuges, reciprocating compressors and extruders.

Keep in mind, the above figure illustrates the savings potential of just one application, variable speed drives. Combined with other advancements in energy efficient technology, savings can rise even higher. There are plenty of energy efficient initiatives for industries to adopt.