In an effort to reduce the company’s carbon footprint, use less energy and water, and significantly increase efficiencies, Jazz Semiconductor Inc., a Tower Group Company, and leading Orange County chipmaker, is conducting an ongoing efficiency overhaul. To be more energy efficient in the operation of its globally competitive 24/7 fabrication facility, the company has already instituted new technology and practices that have resulted in a savings of more than 7.5 million kilowatt hours per year, resulting in the avoidance of 5,386 tons of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions--the equivalent of taking 986 cars off the road.
“We take energy efficiency very seriously,” says Nabil Alali, Senior Vice President, Fab Operations and Site Facilities, Jazz Semiconductor. “We have a designated team at Jazz that helps us collaborate for successful energy management with partner companies and vendors. We have completed projects that have improved the performance and energy efficiency of air, water and process and production equipment systems thereby reducing consumption of water, compressed air and electricity throughout our plant.”
As a part of its ongoing efforts, Jazz Semiconductor has joined the Cool Planet Project, an energy efficiency and climate change mitigation program, administered by The Climate Registry (The Registry) and the utility Southern California Edison (SCE). The Cool Planet Project highlights the connection between energy usage and GHG emissions, while providing assistance to measure, verify, and report their entity-wide GHG profile and emissions reductions.
“SCE is proud to be the first utility to host the Cool Planet Project. We are committed to taking action on climate change and applaud Jazz Semiconductor for its environmental leadership,” said Gene Rodrigues, Director of Energy Efficiency, SCE. “We also congratulate it for receiving California’s Flex Your Power Award for our combined efforts and we look forward to continuing our work with the company to increase energy efficiency.”
Additional efforts by Jazz Semiconductor for energy savings at the highly renovated 100,000 square foot plant include the installation of a recycled high-tech water purification system and the retrofitting of special air handlers, which are a necessity in the semiconductor manufacturing process. These two projects alone represent 4 million kilowatt hours per year saved and 2,873 tons of GHG emissions avoided--the equivalent of taking 526 passenger cars off the road.
