Customer case: Peace of mind with energy operations and significant impact on profitability

Evolving electricity market and regulations urge continuous energy optimisation  

UPM Communication Papers is the world's leading producer of graphic papers, offering an extensive product range for advertising and publishing as well as home and office uses. It operates in a competitive international market where optimal use of resources is critical for success. 

Paper manufacturing consumes high amounts of electricity, so energy optimisation can significantly impact the company’s financial performance. UPM Communication Papers identified the importance of energy management already years ago, putting efforts into optimally running their energy operations.  

However, as the electricity market and the regulations are constantly changing, UPM Communication Papers acknowledges that optimising their energy management is no one-off project. Thus, they have had a long-term partnership with UPM Energy to help them continuously manage their energy operations and optimise their energy costs. 

Initial results of energy optimisation made the team hungry for more  

When energy optimisation started gaining attraction at UPM Communication Papers,  there were some internal concerns and resistance. There were also worries about how the energy optimisation activities could disturb their operations. These concerns were openly discussed and thoroughly solved, resulting in no disturbance in their operations.  

Once the organisation started seeing the real financial value, they got hungry for more improvements and results. The promising first results led to further resource allocation to energy matters and even closer collaboration; determined long-term development and implementation plans. Today, the energy process is on a benchmark of the industry level. No market events are missed and there is full support that the whole energy process is efficient and optimized. This enables UPM Communication Papers to save as much as possible and create as much profits as possible 24/7; 365 days in a year. 

Peace of mind with energy operations and significant impact on profitability  

As a result, UPM Communication Papers has streamlined their energy processes and optimised their energy costs. With an experienced energy optimisation partner supporting them, UPM Communication Papers has peace of mind that their energy operations run smoothly. Having an external energy partner allows them to identify improvement areas and new opportunities caused by the market and regulation changes. 

The close collaboration has improved their energy management on multiple levels: 

• Enhanced consumption forecasts 
• Smooth maintenance and updates of the energy management system
• Interpreting how the coming changes in the energy markets and regulations will affect the business and helping to prepare corresponding actions on a practical level 
• Minimised energy costs and continuous revenue from energy trading
• Better optimisation of their production
• Deep knowledge of the energy management system, its development and trainings together with the customer  
• The development of the reporting and monitoring tools  
• Regular training to the factory personnel
• Overall support on energy topics and strategies so that UPM Communication Papers energy team can allocate their time on their core business  
• With an experienced energy optimisation partner supporting them, UPM

UPM Communication Papers 
UPM Communication Papers is the world's leading producer of graphic papers, offering an extensive product range for advertising and publishing as well as home and office uses. The high performing papers and service concepts of UPM add value to our customers' businesses, while actively fulfilling demanding environmental and social responsibility criteria. With headquarters in Germany, UPM Communication Papers employs approximately 7,700 people.