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Planned vs Reactive Maintenance

Preventive maintenance keeps equipment efficient; reactive (breakdown) repair is costly and inefficient.

10 min read · Jacob Willis, Net Zero Lead · Last reviewed July 2026


How a facility maintains its equipment has a direct and often underestimated effect on its energy use, because equipment at its design condition uses the least energy, and every kind of neglect makes it use more. The first choice is strategic: do you maintain before things break, or after? This lesson covers the three maintenance strategies, the energy argument that runs through the whole course, and how to match strategy to each asset.

In this lesson

  • 01Reactive maintenance
  • 02Planned preventive maintenance (PPM)
  • 03Predictive (condition-based) maintenance
  • 04The energy argument, and choosing a strategy
  • 05Sources and further reading