Impact analysis of a teaching module in a learning factory environment regarding energy efficiency potentials

Caused by expanding legislative controls on greenhouse gas emissions, rising energy prices, and society's environmental awareness, the industrial sector, as one of the main energy consumers, is more than ever compelled to act in order to achieve the sustainable development goals defined by the United Nations. Consequently, manufacturing companies aim not only to examine their facilities with respect to energy consumption, but also to identify potentials and measures to increase their energy efficiency and to implement those measures. Learning factories in universities all over the world are increasingly offering energy efficiency training modules aiming for both supporting industrial companies in their analysis and ensuring early awareness creation among students towards the topic of energy efficiency. Given the nascent nature of this topic, no studies have yet been published that analyze the impact of such training on the achievable energy savings. To close this gap, a teaching module on energy efficiency has been developed, used, and subsequently evaluated within a lecture in the LEAD factory at Graz University of Technology. This paper llustrates not only the designed teaching module, but also the influence of such a module in a learning factory environment on the achievable energy savings. The findings of the study indicate that both the raised awareness and the provision of related theoretical foundations within the teaching module can lead to improvements in identifying associated energy savings potentials and deriving appropriate measures to increase energy efficiency in industrial companies.