In all industries around the world, the cost of energy (fossil, electrical, renewable and nuclear) has become more significant than ever before, negatively impacting on companies' budgets. South Africa is no exception to the general increase, and its electricity prices are of particular concern. The effects of this have been worsened by local and international demands to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions and the newly introduced carbon tax.

Most industries' efforts to 'go green' has been fraught with difficulties, and not many have been able to successfully control and conserve the future of their energy supplies. One notable exception to this is Associated Additives, in Jacobs KwaZulu-Natal, which recently undertook an initiative to improve its overall energy efficiency and make significant savings in its operational costs.

Associated Additives is a leading manufacturer and supplier of lead and non-lead based products, which it sells to PVC, mining, battery and chemical industries around the world. The company's mission is to build on its history of product excellence and technological innovation to provide the highest-quality and most reliable products and services of this type.

Its health and safety requirements are of the highest standards and safeguarding its employees against potential exposure to the harmful effects of lead is of paramount importance. To achieve this, employees are required to shower twice per day as per lead regulations in the Occupational Health and Safety Act. This occurs once before employees begin their lunch break and again before the end of the day's shift. While this may seem an easy feat, the cost of 80 employees showering twice per day significantly increased the company's energy bill.

To reduce this overhead, Associated Additives contracted with SLG for the supply of gas as part of the project of replacing its two electrical geysers with seven
gas water heaters. Fortunately, the decision to switch to gas was an easy one.

Pipeline gas has been proven to be:

• more practical in achieving instantaneous heat
• more convenient as it is readily available 'on tap'
• cleaner-burning fuel with the lowest fossil fuel emissions
• significantly cheaper than electricity

Since then, the change to gas has saved an average of 14 550kWh per annum and the company is now able to purchase energy at a more cost effective price. It also benefits from SLG's continuing advisory service on how to obtain the best value for each gigajoule purchased. Associated Additives also has other gas infrastructure, including gas furnaces and boilers and these savings have added up, particularly over extended periods. Given the current reliability of the national electricity supply, the change to gas has been critical in ensuring that the business' energy needs are met.

In August 2019, Associated Additives obtained ISO:50001: Energy Management System accreditation. This management system standard enables the company to continuously control and improve its energy consumption and performance. SLG is proud to have partnered with Associated Additives in making the switch to gas.

SLG's customer value proposition goes beyond gas supply, offering technical feasibility studies, regulatory licenses, installations, commissioning and postinstallation technical and safety training are facilitated by SLG as value-added services.

T: +27 31 812 0555
W: www.slgas.co.za