Step 2 - Assessment

Task 2d: Quantify inputs and outputs and costs to establish a baseline

TK Chemical Complex Ltd (Chemicals, Bangladesh)

• Before data collection started, an overview of existing reports was made as given in the table below. It was found that energy cost and consumption data are taken from monthly invoices but that the plant itself does not monitor energy because energy is considered as a fixed cost and therefore not actively managed. As a result a breakdown by days or sections was absent. Daily and monthly reports are disseminated amongst management but not communicated to section heads or staff. Therefore section heads and staff members are not provided with the information to identify ways to improve energy efficiency and production. The team therefore had to spent several weeks to collect data for electricity, furnace oil, raw materials, steam, compressed air, waste, water and waste to be able to establish a baseline.
  Lessons learnt: Preparing an overview of existing monitoring and reporting of energy will help the Team estimate how much time is needed to collect data to establish a baseline. If few data are available then this task could take several weeks.

Urea Fertilizer Factory Ltd (Chemicals, Bangladesh)

• Management mentioned at the first meeting that inefficiencies are mostly happening due that the plant is old, and that new technologies rather than improvements to the existing processes were needed to improve the plant’s energy efficiency. An international consultant assisted the plant’s Team and external Bangladeshi facilitators with the collection of baseline data for the plant and compared these with specific resource and energy consumption data of other similar fertilizer plants. Upon showing the results to site management, he convinced management that improvements in resource and energy efficiency of at least 20percent would be possible by improving the existing production process without purchasing new technologies.
  Lesson learnt: Quantifying inputs and outputs and costs can be important to convince management of the potential to improve energy efficiency, which in turn will help in getting their support to implement options at a later stage.

  Anhui Linquan Chemical Industrial Co. Ltd (Chemicals, China)

• There were two major losses observed for the water gas department: heat loss from blow gas and relaxed gas and CO loss in the pipe transport system. This made it possible to come up with an option to install a heat recovery system that would provide a solution for both losses: heat is reused and lost CO gas is captured and burnt
  Lesson learnt: Because a material balance gives a clear indication of all major losses for one focus area, this makes it easier to find options that deal with all losses together instead of each loss separately.

  Jangxi Yadong Cement Corporation (Cement, China)

• The Team could make use of the company’s on-line monitoring system to collect baseline data. This system cover s production, consumption and financial information but also management, process and other information. This allows the company to pro-actively manage production and operation cost at company and department level. The plant manager and each department has a terminal display unit that can be accesses by most production staff to continuously enter and read production parameters such as temperature, pressure, flow rate, materials and energy consumption , and wastes and emissions . This has as an advantage that any irregularities are immediately noticed and reported to the plant manager. Because the system stores the monitored data, daily and monthly reports can be produced automatically, which facilitates the communication between different departments and to top management. However, it was noted that some on-line measurements are not very accurate, f or example, the flue gas analysis at the inlet chamber of the kiln, and the Team took additional measurements to get more accurate data. On-line measurements of coal consumption were found less accurate than the daily measurements by staff on the work floor so the Team used the latter data.
  Lesson learnt: A good information system will save the Team a lot of time to collect baseline data. However, it is important to check the quality of on-line measurements against real measurements to ensure that the data collected is accurate.

Shijiazhuang Iron and Steel Company Ltd (Steel, China)

• The company decided to install a cogeneration system, but being expensive it is difficult to secure the required investment capital. As a solution, the company has planned its installation over a three-year period so that the costs can be spread over three financial budgets. In addition, the company was interested in finding out about ESCOs (Energy Service Companies) in China, which could assist in lending the company part of the required capital in return of a percentage of the profits.
  Lesson learnt: When obtaining the financial capital for expensive options is a barrier it may be possible to spread the option’s implementation over a number of years. Another option is to seek assistance from ESCOs which have been established in several Asian countries to provide the investment costs for energy projects in return for a percentage of the savings for a number of years.

Yuanping Municipal Chemical Industrial Co. Ltd (Chemicals, China)

• The company has very few meters to measure resource consumption and therefore only data on production, raw material consumption and energy use were available from invoices from the accounting department. Two industry experts participated in the assessment of this plant used their knowledge and experience to get some estimates of inputs and outputs, which allowed the Team to establish a minimum baseline.
  Lesson learnt: In the absence of meters to quantify inputs and outputs for focus areas, industry experts can assist with providing estimates.

Siflon Drugs Ltd (Chemicals, India)

• Generally the company did not have much data for the various equipments used in the plant. In order to obtain baseline data for the equipments, monitoring instruments were used (provided to the external facilitator through the GERIAP project) to measure the most important parameters to establish a baseline. These instruments were also used to monitor the results after the implementation of options (task 5a).
  Lesson learnt: Monitoring instruments are required to measure the most important parameters, especially if no data is available. An external facilitator’s assistance could be used in case no monitoring instruments are available at the company.

  ITC Ltd PSPD (Pulp & paper, India)

• The company has a good but informal data collection system, and therefore it takes time to collect the data needed. The external facilitators gave 2 company members of the Team a list of the type of data needed during the technical training course (task 2a). Therefore when the assessment started, most of the baseline data was ready.
  Lesson learnt: Giving a list of required data and information to the company Team will save the external facilitators time when establishing a baseline during the assessment.

Active Carbon Ltd (Chemicals, India)

• This company has a quality management system that is certified to the ISO 19000-2000 standard. As a result, data for raw material use, products made, costs and quality were readily available. However, as the company is operating in a highly competitive market, many of the process parameters (e.g. temperature, pressure, time duration of the cycle, exact nature of chemical used etc.) are confidential and not publicly disclosed. To establish a baseline the median values were therefore taken for these process parameters, which still give enough information to make a material balance (task 2e) and identify losses (task 3a).
  Lesson learnt: A good quality management system helps in the work of collecting good quality data. If the data figures are confidential, median values can still give sufficient information for a material balance because of their high quality.

Indocement (Cement, Indonesia)

• Energy consumption is managed through the quality and environmental management systems, managed by a Management Representative. Each unit of the company has been given a minimum baseline performance and each month each unit’s actual performance is evaluated against this baseline, with the purpose of identifying energy losses and areas for improvement. As a result it was relatively easy to obtain baseline data for energy and determine where losses occur.
  Lesson learnt: If a company already has a system to measure energy for different departments then it is relatively easy to establish an energy baseline and identify losses.

PT Krakatau (Iron and steel, Indonesia)

• The company has no online information systems, therefore it was difficult to obtain historical and current data. In addition, most plants and the company have hot processes and sometimes temperatures were too high to take temperature measurements using infrared sensors. For example, due to hot temperatures it was only possible to inspect billets visually and it was not possible to label inspected billets. Because of this, several inputs and outputs were calculated and/or estimated using the experience of the external facilitators and the plant’s Team members. The same applied to monitoring results of implemented options.
  Lesson learnt: If real measured data are not available it is sometimes necessary to rely on estimations and theoretical calculations.

Puyat Vinyl (Chemicals, Philippines)

• The external facilitators found it difficult to obtain sufficient information to establish a baseline because many visits to the plant were required to do this and the plant is located about 200 km outside Metro Manila where the external facilitators were based.
  Lesson learnt: External facilitators should consider distance to the plant in the planning of the energy assessment because it may not be possible to visit plants located far away often

Steel Asia (Iron and steel, Philippines)

• The company has no water metering system or any means to measure the allocation of water used by different production processes. This makes it difficult to establish a water baseline from which to measure water savings after the implementation of water conservation options.
  Lesson learnt: It is not always possible to establish a baseline for resource and energy consumption.

Dankotuwa (Ceramics, Sri Lanka)

• Based on the results of the pre-assessment regarding information availability and potential scope for improvement, the assessment of the three focus areas was done in different level of detail. Flue gas measurements in kilns were done in detail. The electrical system power factor and harmonic levels were also studied in detailed. But the compressed air system was only briefly assessed.
  Lesson learnt: Not all focus areas need to be assessed in the same level of detail, depending on factors such as information availability and improvement potential

National Paper Company (Pulp and paper, Sri Lanka)

• Company had a fair amount of baseline data. However, the meters of the boiler plant were malfunctioning and therefore monthly cost statements were used to obtain fuel and technical data. For water this was not a solution and the company did not have monitoring instruments to measure the water flow and subsequently calculate water consumption
  Lesson learnt: Sometimes invoices and reports on production and costs can be used to obtain baseline data when meters are either absent or broken, although this is not a solution for all resources and waste streams

Asian Chemicals Ltd (Chemicals, Thailand)

• Although the company has a good information system, there is only one electricity meter that measures the total electricity consumption of the plant, and therefore electricity consumption for the focus area could not be determined
  Lesson learnt: It often happens that plants only have one meter that measures electricity consumption for the entire plant, which makes it difficult to find out electricity consumption for individual departments or equipments

Hanoi Ceramic Ltd (Ceramics, Vietnam)

• Daily oil consumption data were not available separately for the kiln and vertical drier because one flow meter is used for the two equipments together. To find out the consumption for each equipment separately, the Team asked the Vice Director to stop operation of the kiln for one hour. The oil consumption during this hour was how much the vertical drier uses per hour. This amount was subtracted from the normal oil consumption per hour to obtain the oil consumption for the kiln. These two figures were then used as baseline data for the kiln and vertical drier.
  Lesson learnt: In certain cases, establishing the fuel consumption for a specific equipment can be made by a short-time shut down of the equipment.

Other lessons learnt:

• It is important to use actual or measured performance data for equipment and processes. What often happens is that equipment specifications are used, but as these are often different to the actual performance, this does not make it possible to identify real losses
• Actual performance data can often be obtained from the Central Control Room of the plant, monitoring records, measurement with monitoring instruments, and interviews with staff and operators
• If it not possible to obtain actual performance data, alternatives are secondary data from literature, calibration records, and time recordings
• The accuracy of data should be verified: how it was monitored, calculation methods, conversion factors, assumptions made, equipment calibrations, standard errors of meters, etc.
• If an energy assessment is carried out over a longer period, then a check and if necessary an update of data is important
• Establish a log of information collected, with the dates, monitoring methods etc.
• Costs of inputs and outputs should be collected where possible, because management is more interested in how much money can be saved instead of how much energy can be saved (e.g. a certain amount of fuel oil reduction will save more than the equivalent amount of coal reduction because fuel oil is more expensive than coal
• Financial data may be more available but more difficult to get because often this information is confidential and has to be obtained from the accounts or finance department
• Most companies that participated in the project do not have an electronic information system in place, and therefore it took more time for to get baseline data
• Even if baseline data is available, then the reliability should be checked with actual measurements and/or purchasing, production and sales records