By: Saïdou Kone - Regional Segment Director, Food & Beverage and Life Science, Francophone Africa & Islands, Schneider Electric

Central Africa’s beverage industry has the potential to grow in leaps and bounds in the next few years, bolstered by rising urban consumer demand and the steady expansion of supermarkets and hospitality sectors.

However, to meet the above, beverage manufacturers will also have to establish operations that not only keep up with a burgeoning marketplace but also realises sustainable operations long before the first bottle comes off the production line.

Greenfield plants will provide Central African beverage manufacturers with the perfect opportunity to determine how energy will be consumed, monitored and managed before the first bricks and mortar are laid. 

The design phase will therefore provide the proverbial and true foundation for the next 20 or 30 years of a plant’s operation, and potentially much longer.

Designing for the plant’s entire lifecycle

As mentioned, a new manufacturing facility is not simply a construction project but a long-term operating asset that will need to produce efficiently and competitively throughout its lifecycle.

What this means, in practice, is manufacturers need to think beyond the immediate capital investment and consider what happens once construction is complete. How will the plant consume energy, how will it be measured and how will equipment be maintained? And importantly, can processes be optimised as production requirements change?

These questions need to be addressed during design, rather than when the plant is already operational.

Once a facility has been built, correcting an inefficient process can be significantly more complex and costly. What may have been a relatively straightforward design decision at the outset can become an expensive intervention later.

Energy one of the costs that continues throughout the life of a plant - remaining an ongoing operational expense. A plant designed without sufficient consideration of energy performance can therefore carry that inefficiency year after year..

You cannot manage what you cannot see

One of the first principles of energy management is simple: you need to understand how you are consuming energy before you can manage it effectively.

Energy visibility needs to be built into the architecture from the get-go.  Rather than treating energy monitoring as an additional capability to be added later, manufacturers can design systems that collect the data needed to understand consumption across the facility. 

In turn, this creates a picture of where energy is being used, where consumption is changing and where opportunities for improvement may exist:  

• Embed energy visibility from the start- design systems to collect and contextualise consumption data across the facility, rather than treating monitoring as an add‑on.
• Digitalisation as the foundation - tools such as Schneider Electric’s Power Monitoring Expert (PME) provide real‑time visibility into electrical and energy performance, while Power Advisor helps benchmark and identify improvement opportunities.
• Turn data into insight - analyse operational information to build a clear picture of where energy is used, how consumption is shifting, and where efficiency gains can be made.
• Optimise core systems - implement pumps and fans with variable speed drives (VSDs) where appropriate.
• Leverage smart technologies - consider soft starters and other solutions to enhance motor performance and reduce wasted energy.

Beyond construction

Perhaps the most important change is to stop viewing the design phase as simply the period in which a plant is drawn and specified.

There is the design itself, followed by construction, commissioning, operation and maintenance. Each stage will influence the next. If maintenance requirements, energy performance or operational realities are overlooked during design, the consequences may only become apparent years later.

This is why energy and sustainability expertise needs to have a seat at the table from the beginning.

At Schneider Electric, we engage manufacturers early in the project lifecycle to define the goals of the beverage plant, then align energy management, digitalisation, and electrical infrastructure to support those objectives from day one.

The opportunity presented by greenfield development is too significant to design only for today’s needs. it demands a future‑ready approach from the outset