Partly for heating as well – industrial buildings need to be heated but are generally not very well insulated so turning down the temperature by a few degrees results in nice savings at the cost of people having to wear a warm sweater. But there is also "process heat" (at least that is the term in German), which is heat needed to make stuff. You can make less stuff or make it more efficiently. Same thing with electricity and the use of natural gas in certain industrial processes.
Right, but i thought you can’t make a factory more efficient on a whim. Especially somewhere like Germany. So when they say the industry cut the consumption within last year then the first thing they comes to mind is less production.
Reducing energy consumption: Cutting production because it's no longer economically viable with the increased energy prices, and maybe to a much smaller extent switching to more efficient methods
If you're only looking at one energy source: Switching to another. For example, gas was scarce and expensive while oil was less affected, so some factories switched from gas to oil (some systems can be switched relatively easily).
