Display omitted •An attempt made to explore energy efficient volute for industrial blowers.•Parallel wall volutes assessed for aerodynamic performance against rectangular.•Increased efficiency of 6% achieved with R 4.0 parallel wall volute.•Parallel wall volutes can be an efficient and effective alternative. In this article, parallel wall volutes are proposed as an alternate and energy efficient volute to the commonly used rectangular volute for an industrial centrifugal blower. A detailed comparison of performance between parallel wall and rectangular volute are made for four different width ratios. The stage performance analysis suggests that the parallel wall volutes perform better in terms of both specific work developed and total-total isentropic efficiency. From component performance assessment, parallel wall volutes found to have higher static pressure recovery and lower loss for the full operating range considered. The flow field reveals that the parallel wall volute shows more uniform static pressure distribution at the volute inlet compared with the rectangular volute. The detailed aerodynamic performance analysis reveals that the overall performance of a centrifugal blower can be improved up to 6% with parallel wall volute. Moreover, it is demonstrated that the rectangular volute can be replaced with parallel wall volute without modifying foundation, inlet and outlet duct.