Smart Energy Monitoring in Manufacturing: How Comansa Reduced Energy Use by 74% 

The Spanish company Comansa has been manufacturing tower cranes for the construction industry since 1962. In 2001 it began its international expansion, moving into the United States and Canada. And in 2006 it began to expand into China, with a production center and branch office to serve the Asian markets. 

Although they were very competitive and had successfully expanded internationally, they wanted to monitor their consumption in order to better understand it and identify possible inefficiencies.  

Comansa faced a growing challenge like other manufacturers worldwide: energy costs were taking up a significant share of operational expenses across its three Spanish factories. So they decided to take control over their consumption, reduce energy waste and identify saving opportunities with the support of Spacewell Energy’s partner Grupo 3E. 

Challenges in Energy Management 

With multiple production lines and heavy machinery, Comansa’s energy footprint was large and complex. They needed actionable insights, tracking energy use per production unit and across systems like compressors, turbines, and HVAC equipment. 

They initially focused on large consumptions such as general meters and entire production lines, to carry out studies and obtain energy performance indicators or to find out how much energy they consumed per unit of production. 

The Solution: Smart Energy Monitoring and Targeted Improvements 

Energy monitoring was the first stage of the project, followed by a wider use of Spacewell Energy to demonstrate energy savings and detect anomalies. 

Some of the improvement measures identified to achieve savings included installation of variable speed drives in compressors and turbines in the painting line, solar photovoltaic installation and LED lighting in the manufacturing plant and in the office building. 

Comansa combined data from new and existing hardware to measure electrical, gas, photovoltaic, water, CO₂, temperature, humidity, tank levels, flow rates and compressed air volumes. 

By regularly monitoring, centralizing and analyzing data, it was possible to identify several points where energy-saving measures were a priority. Consequently, consumption was gradually reduced to significant levels. 

Results: 74% Reduction in Energy Use 

Thanks to centralized monitoring and optimization, Comansa reduced annual energy consumption of electricity and gas from 10.8 million kWh to 2.9 million kWh—a 74% reduction. This led to €2.27 million in total savings, with nearly €200,000 saved each year since the program began. 

With these results, Comansa plans to extend energy monitoring to its plant in China and explore the impact of lithium-ion storage systems. 

The Comansa example is one to believe that the more you consume, the larger your margin to achieve savings. Manufacturers of all products can reduce energy consumption with the support of an Energy Management System to help identify the measures with a higher return, as well as to offer real data of the savings achieved.