The boiler blowdown process involves the periodic or continuous removal of water from a boiler to remove accumulated dissolved solids and/or sludges. During the process, water is discharged from the boiler to avoid the negative impacts of dissolved solids or impurities on boiler efficiency and maintenance. However, boiler blowdown wastes energy because the blown down liquid is at about the same temperature as the steam produced. Much of this heat can be recovered by routing the blown down liquid through a heat exchanger that preheats the boiler's makeup water. A boiler blowdown heat recovery project at Augusta Newsprint Company's Augusta, GA mill will save almost $31,000 annually in fuel costs.

In July 2001, the Augusta Newsprint Company partnered with Invensys' Pacific Simulation group to implement an advanced quality control (AQC) solution for the thermomechanical pulping (TMP) process at Augusta Newsprint's Augusta, Georgia, site. The goal of the project is to decrease energy and raw material costs while maintaining final pulp quality. The project involves coordinating AQC in 3 areas of the paper mill to reduce the amount of energy required for manufacturing. In addition, a time-of-day production (TODP) feature will use current power market pricing data to adjust production rates in the pulping operation to minimize the average cost of purchased energy. The AQC implementation is currently in progress.

In 2000, The Visteon automotive glass plant improved its compressed air system at its automotive glass plant in Nashville, Tennessee. This improvement allowed Visteon to save $711,000 annually, reduce annual energy consumption by 7.9 million kilowatt-hours, reduce maintenance, improve system performance, and avoid $800,000 in asbestos abatement costs.

Augusta Newsprint Company performed a plant-wide energy assessment that implemented four projects involving pumping systems presented in this study, which are projected to reduce energy consumption by over 5,200 megawatt hours.