Inside the semiconductor industry’s shift to smarter energy management

Semiconductor fabs have never been casual energy users, but the nature of the industry’s energy conversation has changed sharply in recent years. For Henri Berthe, president of Schneider Electric’s semiconductor segment, sustainability is no longer simply an external regulatory requirement. It has become a board-level operational issue, as manufacturers seek to reconcile surging chip demand with rising energy costs, constrained grids and the unforgiving economics of continuous production.

Semiconductor fabs look to data before new power sources

That pressure is not necessarily making fabs more adventurous in the technologies deployed on site. Purchased renewable electricity is playing a growing role in manufacturers’ sustainability strategies, but the contribution of generation located at the fab itself remains limited. Even if a facility covered every available surface with solar panels, Berthe noted, on-site generation would provide no more than around 5% of the power required by a fab consuming 100 MW, 200 MW or even 400 MW.

For fabs, data analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning offer a lower-risk route to meeting energy targets by helping existing systems operate closer to their optimal set points. “The cheapest and the most sustainable energy is the energy that the customer will not spend,” Berthe said. In other words, the fastest sustainability gain is not always a new power source. It is better control of the facility itself.

Optimising the existing infrastructure

For established fabs, the main energy challenge is not necessarily inefficient equipment, but the difficulty of changing assets without disrupting production. Power consumption is divided roughly evenly between process tools and the facility systems that support them, but the two sides are not equally open to intervention.

Production tools are expensive, tightly qualified and directly tied to yield, making replacement for energy reasons alone difficult to justify. The more accessible opportunity lies in chilled water, cooling, air handling, compressed air and steam systems. Cooling is particularly significant, accounting for almost half of facility-side energy use, according to Berthe.

The problem is often less the efficiency of individual assets than how they operate together. Equipment may come from different vendors, have been installed over decades and sit on separate control platforms. Bringing that data together allows fabs to identify losses caused by poor sequencing, conservative set points or mismatches between demand and supply.

Weather, production volumes and anticipated demand can then be fed into AI-supported optimisation models to help operators adjust systems before conditions change.

Scaling efficiency across global portfolios

Schneider Electric’s work with semiconductor manufacturers is increasingly extending beyond individual fabs into global portfolio planning. For multinational chipmakers, the objective is to validate an energy-efficiency model at one site, quantify the savings and then replicate it across the wider manufacturing network.

Asia is often where that process begins. As the centre of global semiconductor manufacturing, the region is also experiencing some of the industry’s most immediate energy pressures, including grid constraints, supply limitations and restricted access to renewable power in certain markets. This makes it a valuable testing ground for strategies that must perform under genuine operational pressure.

Manufacturers will typically pilot a solution at one fab, measure the efficiency gains and return on investment, and use the results to support deployment at other sites. “They like to test to make it work and to replicate worldwide, regardless of the geography,” Berthe said.

Designing with monitoring in mind

For new fabs, the opportunity is to avoid treating energy monitoring as a later retrofit. While existing facilities must first determine which assets are connected and visible, new projects can build that visibility into the design from day one.

Berthe said the starting point is straightforward: place “sensors everywhere” and measure every major source of energy consumption so that systems can be optimised once the fab becomes operational.

Monitoring does not reduce energy use by itself, but it provides the data foundation operators need to understand how chillers, pumps, air-handling units and other facility systems are performing in real time.

This approach is also encouraging some manufacturers to adopt a more centralised model for energy management. Berthe said Schneider Electric is seeing growing interest in control centres that aggregate data from fabs around the world, enabling operators to compare performance, benchmark sites and standardise improvements across the wider portfolio.

The intersection between power reliability and energy efficiency

In a semiconductor fab, energy efficiency cannot be separated from power reliability. Operators may want to reduce consumption, but the electricity supplying the fab must also be stable enough to protect continuous production.

The reason is the cost of even a brief disturbance. Berthe said a voltage sag lasting only 10 or 20 milliseconds can trip critical tools, interrupt production and put weeks’ worth of wafers at risk, estimating that one hour of fab downtime can cost between $1 million and $2 million.

Harmonic distortion is another recurring concern, particularly because production tools supplied by equipment manufacturers can introduce harmonics into the electrical network. If they are not controlled, these distortions can shorten equipment life and contribute to process instability.

For greenfield projects, Berthe pointed to digital twin modelling and harmonic studies at the design stage, followed by real-time detection of voltage sags and harmonics during operation. Beyond just detecting an event, the goal is to understand its root cause and prevent it from recurring.

Mitigation options can include active harmonic filters, power-factor correction, dynamic voltage restorers and uninterruptible power supplies. The broader shift, however, is that power quality is increasingly being managed with the same discipline as energy efficiency: monitored continuously, measured against key performance indicators and linked directly to operational performance.

Future solutions

Emerging technologies such as battery energy storage systems and small modular reactors are not yet near-term solutions for semiconductor manufacturers.

Their appeal is clear: battery storage could support resilience, help integrate renewables and give fabs more flexibility as grids become more constrained. In Berthe’s view, however, the semiconductor industry has not yet reached the point at which BESS is being widely adopted at fab level.

“BESS could support and improve the power resilience. That’s for sure,” he said. The question is not whether the technology has value, but whether it fits the operating culture and physical constraints of front-end semiconductor manufacturing. Fabs are highly sensitive, space-constrained environments in which every square metre is contested, and the cost of failure makes operators reluctant to become early test cases.

It is likely that battery storage will mature first at grid level, where it can support wider resilience and renewable integration and then move towards being a mainstream solution for individual fabs.