← Business Metric: Industry Specific (Industrials & Materials) (all topics)
Total cost of ownership - compressors (energy)
What it is
Compressed air is among the largest electricity consumers in a factory, and energy typically dominates a compressor's lifetime cost - the purchase price is a small fraction of what the machine costs to run over a decade
Selling on efficiency means selling on the customer's electricity bill rather than on equipment price
Impact on industries
- Shifts competition from purchase price to lifetime economics, which favours technically superior manufacturers over low-cost importers
- Variable-speed drives, heat recovery and monitoring give a measurable, auditable saving that justifies a price premium
- Requires the customer to think in lifetime terms, and price-sensitive Indian buyers frequently do not, especially in smaller units
- Energy-efficiency labelling and industrial decarbonisation targets push buyers toward the lifetime view, so the argument strengthens over time