The right balance makes a difference

• Top 20 analysis highlights where immediate energy and materials savings can be made 
• Optimising the software on a heat pump saves about 20 000 kWh of electricity per year

HAASE Gesellschaft m.b.H. is a producer of high-temperature, low-sag energy cables and rope and lifting systems from Graz, Austria. The company carried out a Top 20 input-output analysis, which revealed potential areas of improvement in processes, products and the whole product life cycle.

Top 20 analysis quantifies flows of different materials and energy in a company. It improves internal accounting of these flows, which shows where companies can better allocate non-product output costs and identify potential for resource efficiency gains within processes. This method has been widely used in clean production projects since the 1990s and recently became an integral part of the EDIT Value method, or 'Eco-innovation Diagnosis and Implementation Tool for enterprise Value', which was developed within the PRESOURCE project (www.presource.eu). EDIT Value, including updated Top 20, was piloted in 18 companies from six European countries.

In HAASE's case, Top 20 identified several useful areas for improvement:

• Installation of meters and continuous documentation of the electricity demand
• Preparation of a water balance
• Preparation of a heat balance and metering of the heat demand per unit
• Analysis of the production process to reduce aluminium waste

Key results

The analysis highlighted a number of areas for immediate improvement. For example, the company optimised the control software governing the heat pump. This measure alone saves about 20 000 kWh of electricity per year.