10 Steps to Energy

10 Steps to Energy
Efficiency Improvement
Efficiency
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Improvement
Prepared by:

Ivana Lukec, Ph.D.

[email protected]
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March 2021
 Introduction

The ways in which improved energy efficiency can be

achieved within industrial processes are:

Minimizing wastes and losses

Optimizing process operation

Achieving better heat recovery

Determining process changes

Optimizing energy supply system

Once that industrial process unit is identified as a potential

for energy efficiency improvement, the following project

steps are required to implement the project. These project

steps can be changed and modified in accordance with the

needs of individual chemical processes, their improvement

potential, and overall experience of the engineering team.

10 Steps to Energy
Efficiency Improvement

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 STEP 1: Mapping the Balances
Every energy efficiency improvement project aims to maximize internal use

of energy, optimize process operation and energy supply system. These

goals inevitably lead to profit maximization as well.

Therefore, the first step of an energy efficiency improvement project is done

by considering the whole plant: raw material and utilities as inputs, and

products, wastes, and vent losses as outputs from the process.

Mapping the whole process is done in terms of material, heat, and

economic balances. It is important to do it as step one because it makes it

easier to view where the actual losses are occurring and to focus on them.

STEP 2: Assessing the Current

Plant Conditions
Various process equipment like furnaces, heat exchangers, distillation

columns, reactors, pumps, and compressors, etc., form the backbone of

chemical plants.

Before jumping to provide solutions, it is very important to know how they

are performing currently. It also involves assessing the losses of different

parts of the process In this step an overall assessment of the base

equipment layer is performed which essentially means identification

of any problems in furnaces, heat exchangers, distillation columns, reactors,

pumps, and compressors, etc.

The ways to perform this step include talking to process engineers and staff

and analyzing process data usually available through the historian

database.

10 Steps to Energy .

Efficiency Improvement

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STEP 3: Assessing Measurement 10 Steps to Energy
Efficiency Improvement

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Process measurements and control are the blood flow of an industrial

process and should work accurately in every energy efficient process.

Adequately performing instrumentation allows key parameters to be

correctly measured, while process control allows the process to work in

safe, stable, and optimum operation. Problems such as missing or

incompetent measuring sensors, problems in control valves (like missing

valves, hysteresis, stiction, valve oversize, or undersize phenomena), or PID

loops tuning are identified and actions for improvements are suggested.

Depending on the shortcomings detected, saving from 1 to 5% can be found

with this step.

STEP 4: Development of the

.

process model
Before building the roadmap to improvement, current design and operation

need to be analyzed in details. The best way to do it is by developing an

adequate process simulation model based on first principles. Through its

development, all the relevant aspects of the process are analyzed including

the equipment and its various limitations, key process variables, the way

that the industrial unit brings profits etc. This is a step where PFDs and

P&IDs are analyzed in detail, all the opportunities and constraints are

identified and the current operation is analyzed from the historical data.

.
STEP 5: Assessing the Plant
Losses
What are the major energy and product losses in a process and why are

they happening? The answer to this question could lead to the identification

of major improvement opportunities. In a chemical process, a valuable

product or energy can be lost either with wastewater or vent to flare. In this

step, a systematic approach is followed to calculate how much energy,

money or resources gets lost per hour due to waste and vent.

In a process, energy losses consist of both thermal and mechanical losses.

Thermal losses typically originate from column overhead condensers,

product rundown coolers, furnace stack, steam leaks, poor insulation of

heat exchangers/piping and vessels, and so on. Mechanical losses could

also be significant, which usually occurs in rotating equipment, pressure

letdown valves, heat exchangers, pipelines, and so on.

An energy and product loss audit seeks to identify key recoverable losses.

The audit is relatively quick and is designed to determine improvement

potential. If the energy loss audit identifies large energy or product losses,

more detailed energy assessment efforts will be undertaken later if so

required.
10 Steps to Energy
Efficiency Improvement
By following this simple but effective step significant saving can be

achieved.
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 STEP 6: Assessing Energy
Integration Opportunities
In addition to a previous step or as a part of it, for industrial plants with

several energy exchange units such as furnaces or heat exchangers (which

almost all industry plants do!!), detailed analysis of heat integration

opportunity using pinch technology should be performed and validated. This

step aims to discover, analyze and define opportunities to optimize energy

efficiency by using optimal heat exchange.

STEP 7: Assessing the

Optimization of Energy Supply
System
In addition to using energy more efficiently in the process, another common

strategy is to produce energy more efficiently. Many plants have their own

on-site power plants that primarily exist to provide steam and power to the

process units, but may also supply electricity to the grid when the electricity

price is high.

Energy supply optimization is achieved by optimizing the configuration and

operating profiles of the boilers and turbines to meet energy demand while

taking into account tiered pricing for power and natural gas, power

contracts to the grid while meeting environmental limits on NOx and CO2

emissions.

10 Steps to Energy
Efficiency Improvement

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STEP 8: Functional design of
the Improvement Solution
A functional design step provides a map of every opportunity and which

methods will be used to exploit a particular opportunity.

The success of the profit maximization will greatly depend on how the

functional design is formulated in order to tap into the potential margins

available in the process.

STEP 9: Developing an Advanced

Process Monitoring Framework by
Applying the Latest Data Analytics Tools
The most important step in developing an optimized process solution is to

be able to measure what process performance looks like against a

reasonable set of benchmarks.

For this purpose, the concept of key energy efficiency and profit indicators

is introduced through a dashboard prepared for monitoring purposes where

all the key profit indicators along with their target values are shown in real-

time. This dashboard enables an operation engineer to quickly identify any

deviations of efficiency and cost performance of the process and take

necessary preventive and corrective actions. An advanced process 10 Steps to Energy

monitoring system is developed by using the latest data analytics and Efficiency Improvement
visualization of the whole process and its performance against targets and
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quickly highlights any deviations of performance opportunities.
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 10 Steps to Energy STEP 10: Implementation of
Efficiency Improvement

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Process Changes
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Process changes defined by the developed process solution most often

require new pieces of process equipment.

With the commercial process simulators available today on the market,

it is possible to check a number of design options for a single piece of

equipment and the optimal design can be finally selected. There are a

variety of advanced technologies that can be applied, all of which vary

in terms of implementation cost and return on investment. Careful

evaluation of each of these solutions is required to select only the best

opportunities that provide the highest return on the capital employed.

If you want to find out how this strategy can be applied

to your plant - get in touch:
[email protected]