Southern California Gas (SoCalGas) is announcing the results of a machine learning project that helped an industrial customer achieve $150,000 in annual, recurring energy savings and nearly 1,000 metric tons of annual CO2 reductions, all through an initial setup cost of just $100,000.

Thanks to this technology, The Gill Corporation has cut its yearly utility bill by 6%, while also reducing CO2 – equivalent to avoiding 112,524 gallons of gasoline consumed annually.

Machine Learning to Optimize Industrial Processes

The project, a collaboration with the Metron company, set out to find ways to use machine learning and digitization to help optimize industrial processes for cost and energy savings, along with reducing their emissions.

In 2020, SoCalGas and Metron selected The Gill Corporation, a leading manufacturer of high-performance composite materials and products for the aerospace, transportation, and other industries, for deployment of this technology.

The technology behind Metron used machine learning to determine where in the industrial processes resources were needed or where data was lacking and additional sensors would be required to fill information gaps.

The project allowed a fully centralized digitization of The Gill Corporation's operations and identified significant ways to reduce both energy use and carbon emissions.

Achieving Net-Zero Greenhouse Gas Emissions 

The Metron project is among dozens of research, development and demonstration projects that SoCalGas is funding to help achieve its aim to have net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2045.

Only in 2022, SoCalGas' Research Development & Demonstration program dedicated over $13 million to numerous energy technology and clean fuels initiatives.

These projects encompass many innovations, such as converting carbon dioxide from industrial sources into consumer goods, developing power generators that can utilize different fuel types, and designing cutting-edge hydrogen fuel cell yard trucks for demanding operations at ports.

The program and its collaborators aim to contribute around $400 million towards decarbonization research by 2025.