Simplot, along with a select group of Northwest businesses, has joined a demonstration project that will provide a roadmap for other industrial facilities in the United States to improve energy efficiency while maintaining economic competitiveness.

Simplot was one of only five companies selected to participate in the Northwest Energy Management Demonstration Project.

Simplot’s selection further establishes the Company as a national leader and innovator in energy conservation and sustainability. Simplot is also the only agriculture-sector business participating in the project.

The project, backed by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the nonprofit Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance, will develop a new voluntary U.S. energy management system.

Participants in the 18-month project, launched in fall 2009, will help shape a new U.S. energy management system standard.

A Northwest Energy Demonstration Project press release stated that Simplot would be helping set the pace for all of industry on the crucial issue of energy management.

Don Sturtevant, Simplot’s corporate energy manager, said it’s important to be part of the demonstration project “because it enables the Company to expand our knowledge of energy management and better positions us to reduce energy costs, boost our bottom line, and protect natural resources.”

The Company’s potato processing plant in Aberdeen, Idaho, is already one of only a handful of industrial facilities in the nation to be Energy Star-certified by the federal government and will be the project’s lead participant.

The other companies participating in the project are: Grays Harbor Paper (Grays Harbor, Wash.); Paccar Inc./Kenworth Trucks (Kirkland, Wash.); Amcor PET Packaging (Tumwater, Wash.); and earth2o Natural Spring Water (Seattle, Wash.).