For decades, bakery manufacturers have treated electricity as a dependable utility, always available when production demanded it. Today, that assumption is changing.
As Europe accelerates its transition towards electrification, the growing demand for electricity is rising due to the increase in the use of electric vehicles, heat pumps, data centres and manufacturing[1]. In some areas, this is placing increasing pressure on electrical infrastructure, the issue is no longer simply the cost of power, but whether sufficient capacity is available when it is needed. For bakery manufacturers, energy usage should be considered at the design stage, with particular attention paid to peak demand, start-up loads and how equipment performs within the electrical capacity available on site.
This is already being seen in practice across Europe, for example, in parts of the Netherlands, including the Utrecht region, electricity grid congestion has delayed industrial expansion, with businesses unable to obtain new or upgraded grid connections because local network capacity has been exhausted[2]. Switzerland has also developed electricity-shortage management measures that could require large consumers to reduce demand, including through consumption restrictions or quotas, if voluntary savings are not sufficient[3].
The UK is facing similar pressures, where lengthy grid connection queues have delayed new industrial development projects. Reforms are now being introduced to prioritise strategically important manufacturing, infrastructure and energy projects[4]. For bakery manufacturers, these examples underline an important shift in energy availability becoming just as important as energy efficiency when planning new equipment production capacity or site expansion.
Historically, bakery equipment has been designed around productivity, reliability and operating costs. These remain essential but manufacturers now also need to consider how equipment draws power during operation and when energy is used. Questions such as maximum peak demand, start-up loads, ramp-up times and recovery after a power interruption will become increasingly important as factories operate within tighter electrical constraints.
Reducing overall energy consumption remains essential, but lowering peak demand may prove equally valuable. Electrical infrastructure is typically sized to accommodate maximum load rather than average consumption. A machine with modest energy use but high peak demand can require expensive upgrades to factory power supplies or limit future expansion.
Intelligent machine design can help address how bakery manufacturers manage these electrical constraints by coordinating motor acceleration, sequencing energy-intensive operations and optimising loads across the machine. Instead of allowing multiple high-power functions to start simultaneously, modern control systems can prioritise and stagger demand, smoothing peak loads without compromising throughput, quality or production reliability.
The technology for machine-level energy monitoring already exists, with industrial energy platforms able to capture real-time energy data insights into where electricity is consumed, while integrated drive and motion control systems can help optimise machine performance, efficiency and sustainability. Regenerative drive technology can recover braking energy that would otherwise be lost as heat, and correctly sized motors avoid the inefficiencies associated with oversized equipment.
These capabilities go beyond reducing electricity bills, as they can also improve a machine’s overall electrical performance and help limit the infrastructure required to support and create a valuable commercial differentiator for OEMs. Customers are increasingly assessing equipment, not only on throughput and reliability, but also on connected load, peak demand, energy recovery and wider electrical performance.
As renewable energy becomes a larger part of Europe’s electricity mix, power availability and pricing will fluctuate throughout the day. Manufacturers with flexible production processes will increasingly be able to schedule energy-intensive operations during periods of lower demand or higher renewable generation, reducing both costs and pressure on the grid.
Historically, factories were designed around available resources such as power from rivers and with multi-storey manufacturing facilities using gravity to move materials efficiently through the production process. Today’s resource constraint is electrical capacity, and modern factories must once again adapt their design philosophy accordingly.
Many baking processes naturally operate within planned production windows, providing opportunities to optimise energy-intensive stages such as mixing, proofing and baking. Combined with intelligent drives, machine-level energy monitoring, right-sized motors, regenerative energy recovery and effective load management, bakeries can reduce both total energy consumption and peak electrical demand without compromising output.
The next generation of industrial machinery will be defined by how efficiently it produces products, plus how efficiently, and how flexibly, it uses the power available. In the years ahead, energy-aware machine design will become a key factor in maintaining competitiveness across European manufacturing.
To find out how EPP can support production lines and help reduce energy consumption, get in touch with a member of the team by emailing sales@eppltd.co.uk or visit www.eppltd.co.uk.
[1] https://energy.ec.europa.eu/topics/infrastructure/european-grids_en
[2] https://www.iea.org/reports/electricity-2026/grids
[3] https://www.axpo.com/group/en/news-and-stories/magazine/energy-market/heading-off-the-power-shortage-with-ostral.html
[4] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-to-tackle-speculative-demand-grid-connection-requests