The amount of renewable energy is increasing in the German energy system. As a result, grid expansion, consumer regulation (demand response), innovative storage solutions or intelligent grid operation are measures to avoid system instabilities. The development of energy prices and regulatory charges is difficult to predict against this dynamic background. The technological development of small power plants is in progress and many of the offered technologies are reaching grid parity. To increase independency from the grid and to avoid grid supply in periods of high prices, the integration of decentral, renewable power generation technologies is a reasonable solution for manufacturing companies. Therefore, a procedure for industrial companies to use their self-produced energy in a sustainable manner is introduced. This paper focuses on the characterization of industrial energy consumers, which is one of the first steps in the procedure. Different consumer criteria are descripted to define 48 consumer groups. Certain factories include consumers that can be described by a multitude of these consumer groups.