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A Californian company has developed a method for calculating the carbon emissions for individual product manufacturing lines.

Costa Mesa-based energy management specialist EPS announced last week that it will officially launch its xChange Point service this June. Provided as a subscription-based service, the technology will use programmable logic controllers at customer plants to provide information on carbon emissions to a database hosted by EPS online.

A web-based interface will then enable customers to conduct trends analysis on carbon emissions and energy usage at the product, plant or corporate level, said the company.

EPS will absorb the upfront capital expenditure necessary to install monitoring equipment at its customers’ plants, explained Shiva Subramanya, chief operations officer for the company.

“In some cases we’d install new sensors and measure new things rather than interfacing with existing systems where they’re problematic,” he said.

This new integration work is likely to drive up the cost of implementation, but Subramanya insists the company is well positioned to absorb the upfront costs, noting that “in return, we are getting subscription contracts for a couple of years, which will cover our costs”. He also added that the deals would be useful entry points for new clients, which would then hopefully contract EPS for related services.

The company already has the system installed with over a dozen customers, with whom it has worked on a beta test basis.

In addition to providing financial benefits by helping companies to make decisions to cut the energy footprint of plant operations, the system could also help some firms to cope with forthcoming carbon legislation, said Subramanya.

“In California, the Carbon Labelling Act is an issue,” he said. “A product like xChange Point provides the capability to display the carbon data [which will appear on carbon labels] and to know what it is, and manage it and publish it with confidence.”