OKI Data's European manufacturing facility, OKI (UK) Ltd., has reduced its electricity use by roughly 600k kWh, which is equivalent to 17 percent of the electricity consumed in 2007, thanks to a number of energy-saving measures including lighting and air-conditioning optimization and server integration. The power savings is equivalent to reducing 315 tons of CO2 emissions.
When OKI (UK) moved to its new facility in 2005, the company took the opportunity to transform the environmental performance of the facility by focusing on its electricity use, which uses 2.8 million fewer kWh annually than the previous facility.
The company implemented several measures to help reduce electricity use. The facility installed master switches for the production hall to turn off lights and air-conditioning simultaneously. It divided the lighting in the production and warehouse area into zones, allowing small areas of the production floor to be lit only when needed. This helped reduce warehouse lighting requirements by 25 percent.
The facility also integrated its server functions, halving the number of servers required. It also reduced fan speeds in the air conditioning units for the production hall by using inverters, and installed refrigerator devices that control temperature based on food temperature, not air temperature.
In 2008, OKI Data set a goal to reduce CO2 emissions six percent by fiscal year (FY) 2012, using FY2007 as a baseline. In 2009, the company announced it would purchase 3.6 million kilowatt hours of green power annually to provide 85 percent of the power needs of its Cumbernauld, Scotland factory.
