ENERGY STAR Focus on Energy Efficiency in Cement Manufacturing

The “cement focus” is a partnership between EPA’s ENERGY STAR program and U.S. cement producers to improve energy efficiency within their operations. Tools are available here to help improve manufacturing energy efficiency, save money, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Cement producers can get started on a path of saving energy by using the ENERGY STAR Guidelines for Energy Management to build an energy management program, and then work within this cement industry focus to learn best practices from the industry. If you're a cement producer who wants to get involved in your industry’s efforts to save energy, contact us at energystrategy@energystar.gov.

Plant benchmarking energy performance indicator (EPI) tool

Use the cement EPI to assess how efficiently a plant uses energy, relative to similar cement plants in the United States. The 1 - 100 ENERGY STAR score enables a quick understanding of how a plant is performing. Plants receiving a score of 75 or higher are eligible to earn ENERGY STAR certification.

To learn more about how EPIs are developed, how to interpret an EPI score, and how to value benchmarking view the Benchmarking Industrial Energy Performance guide.

EPIs can also be used as a management tool to inform meaningful goal setting and enable simple scenario analysis. They can provide insight into both the current and potential performance of a manufacturing plant. To help you leverage the EPI for maximum impact on managing your energy savings efforts, review the Getting Value from Your Industry’s Plant Energy Performance Indicator guide.

Plant energy guide

Use the cement energy guide Energy Efficiency Improvement and Cost Saving Opportunities for Cement Making to find ways to improve the energy performance of a cement plant.

Making progress

Duke University evaluated the improvement in the cement industry’s energy performance over a 10-year period. Important findings include:

• Energy intensity improved 13 percent
• The energy performance of the industry’s least efficient plants changed most dramatically
• Total source energy savings were 60.5 trillion Btu annually
• Environmental savings were 1.5 million metric tons of energy-related carbon emissions

The improvement in the energy intensity is shown below.