Recently, Lake Shore had the pleasure of hosting U.S. Senator Rob Portman, of Ohio, at our facilities in Westerville. The Senator received a tour and met with company leaders to discuss Lake Shore’s efforts to use more energy-efficient tools in our research and manufacturing processes.
Earlier this year, Portman and U.S. Senator Jeane Shaheen introduced the Energy Savings and Industrial Competitiveness (ESIC) Act, a bipartisan effort to promote a more energy-efficient economy and encourage private sector job creation. The bill “uses a variety of low-cost tools to reduce barriers for private sector energy users and will drive adoption of off-the-shelf efficiency technologies among the largest energy consumers,” according to the official press release.
In 2010, Lake Shore implemented an innovative water cooling system that increases energy efficiency. As our capacity continued to expand, so did our cooling needs, but the solutions we were trying left us tight on space and grappling with temperature and humidity control. Working with our contractor engineer, we installed a system that takes advantage of the local air temperature for cooling, using almost no mechanical energy during the colder half of the year. We’re currently exploring options to make the cooling system even more energy efficient.
Other recent energy-saving projects have included installing controls to regulate exhaust from fume hoods to minimize the loss of conditioned air, switching to LED and other more energy-efficient lighting, and installing motion-control switches.
More photos of Senator Portman’s visit can be found on our Facebook and Google+ pages.