• Exclusive Content
  • Events
  • Endeavor Business Media Energy
    1. Energy Efficiency

    Owners spending $32M on Energy Efficiency upgrades to California Building Insulation plant

    Feb. 17, 2022
    The upgrade is projected to increase production capacity at the plant by 13%, while reducing electricity and natural gas consumption and thereby decreasing its carbon footprint by more than 4,000 metric tons per year
    Certaineed Insulation 620e730ab3191

    Saint-Gobain building products subsidiary CertainTeed is investing big on energy efficiency improvements that will increase production and cut electricity consumption at its Chowchilla insulation plant in California.

    CertainTeed will spend $32 million to upgrade equipment including a new oven, furnace and other equipment. The upgrade is projected to increase production capacity at the plant by 13%, while reducing electricity and natural gas consumption and thereby decreasing its carbon footprint by more than 4,000 metric tons per year.

    The new equipment is more efficient that the existing equipment at the plant. The firm has also installed a new oxygen generation unit at the plant, which reduces electricity consumption by 30%. The furnace is heated by mixing oxygen with natural gas.

    Related stories

    City of Norfolk, Virginia embraces DOE's Better Buildings Challenge to reach 20% emissions reduction

    The C&I Challenge: Re-inventing Cold-Climate Heat Pumps to handle an Extreme Weather Future

    Subscribe to EnergyTech's free, tri-weekly Newsletter for more stories like these

    Approximately 20 Saint-Gobain project management professionals and engineers planned the equipment upgrades in Chowchilla. About 300 contract workers were hired to undertake the installations, which started last month. The new equipment is expected to come online this month and in March.

    The investment is part of a broader $400 Million expansion of Saint-Gobain’s manufacturing facilities in the U.S. It is the largest capital investment made by the Saint-Gobain subsidiary in the plant, since the time it began operations in 1978.

    “Our strategic investments in Chowchilla represent a major commitment to our customers on the West Coast for decades to come, ensuring that we will meet the need for our industry-leading fiberglass insulation at a time of unprecedented demand growth, all while reducing the plant’s carbon footprint,” said Andrew Goldberg, Vice President and General Manager of CertainTeed Insulation Product Group. 

    The company is working with the U.S. DOE's ENERGY STAR program to certify its plants as models for energy efficiency. The plants used closed-loop water systems to save thousands of gallons of water annually.

    About the Author

    EnergyTech Staff

    Rod Walton is senior editor for EnergyTech.com. He has spent 14 years covering the energy industry as a newspaper and trade journalist.

    Walton formerly was energy writer and business editor at the Tulsa World. Later, he spent six years covering the electricity power sector for Pennwell and Clarion Events. He joined Endeavor and EnergyTech in November 2021.

    He can be reached at [email protected]. 

    EnergyTech is focused on the mission critical and large-scale energy users and their sustainability and resiliency goals. These include the commercial and industrial sectors, as well as the military, universities, data centers and microgrids.

    Many large-scale energy users such as Fortune 500 companies, and mission-critical users such as military bases, universities, healthcare facilities, public safety and data centers, shifting their energy priorities to reach net-zero carbon goals within the coming decades. These include plans for renewable energy power purchase agreements, but also on-site resiliency projects such as microgrids, combined heat and power, rooftop solar, energy storage, digitalization and building efficiency upgrades.