← Business Metric: Operational (all topics)
Specific consumption & energy intensity
What it is
Input consumed per unit of output - kilowatt hours per tonne, coal per unit of power, water per litre produced. It normalises resource use so efficiency can be tracked independently of volume
It is becoming a compliance metric as well as a cost one under carbon and efficiency regulation
Impact on industries
- The cleanest measure of process efficiency, unaffected by price movements or production volume
- Now carries regulatory and carbon value as well as cost value, since emission intensity targets are set on this basis
- Improvement usually requires capital, so the gap between best and worst plants reflects vintage more than management
- Comparable only within a technology route - a blast furnace and an electric arc furnace cannot be judged on the same figure