At the Bagneaux, France plant of Corning Specialty Materials (a division of Corning Incorporated), reducing water consumption has been a project spanning several years. Through several projects with the Corning Global Energy Management (GEM) team, the plant reduced its water consumption by approximately 40 percent between 2013 and 2016.

“It was very important for us to reduce water. One reason is safety for our workers, and for cost-savings. And, of course, it’s good for the environment,” said Maxime Duhamel, Site Energy Manager.

Duhamel highlighted how he and the project team achieved the reduction:

• 2013: The plant removes its steam boilers and old chillers, contributing to a large water usage reduction. The team also performed maintenance on the plant’s wells, installed meters on the water system, and completed other small-scale projects.

• 2014: The team identifies and repairs two system leaks.
• 2015 and 2016: The plant performs a televised inspection of their pipe system and corrects leaks and other issues found during the inspection.
• 2017: This year, the plant plans to connect all water meters to the same monitoring system. This is intended to allow the team to follow the plant’s hourly water consumption and to be alerted if there’s a significant variation.