Improving energy performance of energy intensive equipment alone may not be enough to bring down energy related costs. If the site is generating its own utilities, energy would be spent on generating the utilities. Typically, the utilities generated in house are:
- Steam at different pressure levels
- Captive power generation from gas turbine, gas engine, steam turbine etc.
- Cooling water
- Compressed air for instruments, pneumatic conveying, etc
- Nitrogen or inert gas
- Heating, ventilation and air conditioning
- Chilled water system, Vacuum absorption refrigeration, etc.
Energy sources such as power from grid, furnace oil, fuel gas, etc would be the energy sources used for generating the above utilities. Another major bottleneck in assessing the energy performance of utilities is the lack of adequate instrumentation of key energy performance indicators.
In improving the energy performance of the utilities generated, our approach is as below:
- Measure the key energy performance metrics using portable instruments where inline measurements are not available.
- Improve energy efficiency of energy intensive equipment such as furnaces, compressors, pumps, distillation columns, thermic fluid circulation system, etc.
- Study the process flow diagrams and P&I Diagrams to identify system related improvement opportunities.