Solutia UK is saving GBP 1,200 a year on its energy bill with the help of ABB's Pay As You Save scheme.

Solutia UK is saving GBP 1,200 a year on its energy bill with the help of ABB's Pay As You Save scheme. The scheme allows the company to pay for its new ABB variable speed drive with the money from energy savings achieved by the drive. Solutia is a global company.

Its manufacturing site in Newport, South Wales makes a diverse range including water treatment chemicals and heat transfer fluids.

Keith Agnew, Energy Manager at Solutia, says: 'With the climate change levy in place, we needed to make savings on our energy bill.

ABB was chosen as it is a global company with quality products and a forward looking scheme to make carbon savings.' ABB conducted an energy audit of Solutia's plant and identified several processes that could benefit from an energy saving variable speed drive.

The first application to be fitted with a drive was the plant's effluent pump, which is now controlled by an ABB ACS401.

With a saving of GBP 1,200 a year, the Pay As You Save scheme, part of ABB's Six Step energy saving plan, gives Solutia a pay back time of a year.

'In situations where companies want to keep capital expenditure down, Pay As You Save offers a way to move the initial cost from capital expenditure to operational expenditure,' explains James Haigh, senior vice president, drive products, at ABB.

'Within a year, the energy savings will have paid for the drive and the company can start saving towards its own bottom line'.

Agnew says: 'The Pay As You Save scheme is ideal for us, as it means we pay only after the savings have been made.

This allows us to buy capital equipment without increasing our capital expenditure.

'As well as the energy savings the drive provides, it also gives us better control of the pH level, producing less waste in the process.' Solutia is planning to fit ABB drives to six other applications in its plant, all under the Pay As You Save scheme.