Michigan State University’s (MSU) Industrial Training and Assessment Center (ITAC) helps small and medium-sized manufacturers and commercial building owners across Michigan save energy, improve productivity, and reduce waste by providing no-cost technical assessments. The MSU ITAC is a U.S. Department of Energy-funded center located on MSU’s East Lansing campus operating in collaboration with Henry Ford College (HFC) and Michigan Tech University (MTU).
With over 6,200 small and medium manufacturers (SMMs) in Michigan, the MSU ITAC aims to conduct at least 20 manufacturing and 10 to 15 commercial building assessments each year with a special focus on disadvantaged communities. Assessments include energy and water savings, smart manufacturing, energy management, cybersecurity, resilience planning, decarbonization, and electrification. The MSU ITAC also creates resources available to the general public to raise awareness and help those not seeking an official assessment (non-participating SMMs).
The ITAC's contributions extend beyond valuable, no-cost technical assessments to include workforce development and beneficial research in the energy and manufacturing sectors.
Energy Workforce Development
Faculty and staff from MSU train the students from MSU, HFC, and MTU on energy audit processes, energy efficiency measure identification, the use of energy audit equipment, energy-consuming processes, utility bill and energy data analysis, and communication skills. The students, faculty, and staff then work together in small teams to complete 30 industrial and commercial building energy assessments across the state per year. In addition to helping clients identify ways to improve operations, the assessment process also helps build and expand a knowledgeable and diverse energy workforce through a structured, hands-on educational program.
Undergraduate and graduate students employed through the ITAC gain real-world experience and have many opportunities to build and improve skills by leading assessments, completing assessment reports, communicating with clients, and directing sub-teams focused on equipment management, research, database management, student recruitment, and manufacturer outreach. Second-year ITAC students also serve as mentors to newer ITAC students.
Benefits of Research
Many of the MSU ITAC students participating in assessments also lead research projects on a variety of topics, such as developing assessment recommendation improvements, conducting meta-analyses of trends the MSU ITAC has identified, assessing opportunities for low-temperature heat recovery, and assessing the use of virtual reality to improve training methods. These projects help to improve the quality of assessment services the center provides, streamline center processes, and improve training methods. Others are presented or published in peer-reviewed scientific settings to advance knowledge and research in the energy and manufacturing sectors.
From monitoring and analyzing utility bills to understanding commercial and industrial companies’ energy use patterns to assessing opportunities to working with plant operations staff to identify potential online security risks, student research conducted through the ITAC is helping SMMs make meaningful changes to their operations. Recent projects include:
• Field testing to evaluate energy loss caused by air entering a building when garage/bay doors are open revealed further potential to improve the calculation methods used to estimate energy savings from the use of air or plastic curtains for such openings. Through the use of high-accuracy anemometers installed in multiple locations in such openings and at standard weather station height, the long-term analysis will improve the method of calculation for energy losses through large openings such as garage doors, particularly in winter months.
• Energy savings calculations to estimate the benefits of improved insulation required estimating the efficiency of manufacturers’ existing wall and/or roof systems. This estimation process can benefit from field measurements to improve the accuracy of calculations. Through in-situ field testing of manufacturer building envelopes, using heat flux and surface temperature measurements, this effort has focused on evaluating methods to estimate the R-value of envelope systems within the duration of a one-day assessment period. The results of this effort will improve field data collection and accuracy of energy savings estimates.
• Assessing utility bills for clients over the past several years helped researchers establish a benchmark for utility blended rates, average consumption, and average energy cost breakdowns which allowed the companies to compare their rates and usage to similar companies in order to determine if there are potential opportunities to switch to a more beneficial rate structure. The data collected also enhances training and allows students to understand additional opportunities to use insights from utility bill analysis to identify other energy savings opportunities.
• Throughout Michigan, emergency demand response programs are offered by many electric utilities to support grid reliability during high peak periods of electricity demand. Participation in these programs can provide manufacturers with significant utility bill credits that can save them tens of thousands of dollars. Through this research, MSU ITAC students contacted utilities offering these programs and compiled a resource that is used as a reference on assessments, to increase awareness of manufacturers in these programs offered, enabling further cost savings for SMMs.
Manufacturers with annual energy bills between $100K and $3.5M, annual sales under $250M, fewer than 500 employees per site, no in-house energy professional on staff, and Standard Industrial Codes (SIC) 20-39 are eligible for assessments. Commercial buildings must be 100,000 sq. ft. or less to qualify.
For more information, visit iac.msu.edu.
