Author: Ali Hasanbeigi, Ph.D.
The tragic and unjust war in Ukraine has caused an energy crisis in Europe and around the world. The prices of oil and natural gas are skyrocketing within a short period of time putting pressure on consumers in different sectors of the economy. Even before the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, the energy prices in Europe were in steep upward trends. The Dutch TTF Gas (a leading European benchmark price) is up by 10 folds compared to the same time in 2021. With increasing energy prices and uncertainly over the war in Ukraine, policymakers especially in Europe are struggling to reduce the burden of higher natural gas prices for people and businesses.
Figure: Natural Gas EU Dutch TTF (EUR/MWh) – https://tradingeconomics.com - Accessed March 8, 2022
There are many things that can be done in medium and long term to reduce Europe’s dependence on Russian oil and gas and keep the prices under control for the consumers. Many people are already talking about different strategies to do that. But those actions will take time to implement and show their impact. Here in this blog post, I focus on what can be done in a short term (aka in a hurry) to save natural gas and reduce energy costs now. Since my field of expertise is industrial energy efficiency and decarbonization, I will focus on different strategies that can be implemented by industrial companies to save natural gas now.
In Europe, over a quarter of the total energy used in industry is natural gas (Eurostat Energy Balances-2022 edition). The chemical, petroleum refining, iron and steel, non-metallic minerals (e.g. cement and glass), and food and beverage industry are the top five natural gas consuming industries in Europe accounting for around 75% of total natural gas used in industry.
There are different strategies that can help reduce natural gas consumption in industry. But in this blog post we want to focus on options that can be implemented now in a very short period of time and results in natural gas cost savings.
The best solution for saving natural gas in a hurry in industry is Energy Efficiency!
Of course, there are other options such as fuel switching, electrification, material efficiency, alternative materials and alternative processes that can also help to reduce natural gas use in industry. We have also conducted in-depth studies on those options over the years as well. But most of those options will require longer time period to implement and often higher capital for deployment. On the other hand, there are numerous studies that have identified cost-effective energy efficiency opportunities with low payback period in different industry sectors. All energy efficiency measures and technologies are even much more cost-effective now with this staggeringly high energy prices in industry in Europe. So, all industrial companies should re-evaluate their efficiency investment strategy and un-shelve energy efficiency projects that may have not been cost-effective before with lower energy prices.
Industrial companies in Europe that are facing challenges with this high natural gas and energy prices should immediately form an Energy Efficiency Task Force in their companies. Such task force should consist of people from management, engineering, finance and process operation. If companies do not have in-house expertise in energy efficiency, they should seek help from a local energy efficiency consulting firm. An investment in such services in such high energy price environment will have a very favorable rate of return. Government should consider providing financial support especially to SMEs for conducting an energy assessment.
A detailed energy assessment/audit of the industrial plant that can be conducted in 2-3 days should be implemented with a focus on process heating and boiler and steam systems where majority of natural is used. Natural gas saving opportunities should be identified and ranked based on their ease of implementation (how fast they can be implemented) and rate of return. The measures with the best economic rate of return that can be implemented rather quickly should be prioritized and presented to top management for approval and implementation.
There are many energy efficiency and system optimization measures that can be implemented at low cost in short period of time if the industrial plants have in-house expertise to identify and implement these measures. The approval of such projects should not get stuck in bureaucratic process of larger corporates. More capital-intensive energy efficiency projects that can be implemented in relatively short period of time should still be considered especially in such high energy-price environment.
Below I’ll provide more specific resources that can help industrial plants in their assessment of natural gas saving potential in industrial process heating and industrial boilers and steam systems. These are just a few examples for sources of information available in English. I am sure there are other sources of information available in different languages. If you are not familiar with those resources, just reach out to your local energy department or universities with energy studies and I am sure they’d be happy to help you.
Industrial boilers and steam systems optimization:
Steam is used extensively as a means of delivering energy to industrial processes. Steam holds a significant amount of energy on a unit mass basis that can be extracted as mechanical work through a turbine or as heat for process use. In addition, steam can be used to control temperatures and pressures during processing, strip contaminants from process fluids, dry solid products, and in other miscellaneous applications. Equipment that use steam vary substantially across industries and are generally process- and location-specific.
In most cases, the focus on improvements for industrial steam systems has been mainly on the equipment (primarily boilers) rather than the entire steam system, which includes steam generation, distribution, end uses, and heat recovery systems. Although system optimization might be more difficult than changing a piece of equipment since it requires more holistic knowledge and assessment of the system, it will often yield much greater energy saving compare to replacing a single component with a more efficient one. Besides, the presence of energy efficient components (e.g. boilers), while important, provides no assurance that an industrial steam system will be energy efficient. Misapplication of equipment to demand, mismanagement of the system, and operation below the optimal efficiency in the industrial steam systems are common. Therefore, there is a need for shifting the paradigm to focus attention on steam systems optimization and efficiency as a whole rather than focusing solely on the boiler efficiency.
Some examples of energy efficiency measures that can be implemented on natural gas boilers are:
· Excess air management: Tune existing positioning control (or simple control)
· Excess air management: Upgrade from simple control to standard oxygen trim
· Excess air management: Upgrade from standard oxygen trim to oxygen trim with CO tuning
· Flue gas thermal energy recovery (Economizer and/or air heater)
· Optimization of boiler blowdown and recovery of heat from boiler blowdown
· Optimization of insulation of steam piping, valves, fittings, and vessels
· Implementation of an effective steam trap maintenance program
· Optimization of condensate recovery
· Flash-steam recovery
You can find much more detail information on industrial boiler and steam systems efficiency improvement in US DOE’s steam system optimization guidebook.
There are also many natural gas saving opportunities in industrial heating systems such as cement kilns, steel industry’s furnace, glass melter, chemical industry reactors, etc. However, those opportunities are more sector-specific. The sector-specific energy efficiency guidebooks provided by US EPA (see below) and other institutions such as the ones by Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (see below) provide more in-depth information about natural gas saving opportunities in different industries.
Resources:
U.S. DOE’s Resources for Industry
US DOE has developed and published various guidebooks and tools on energy saving in industrial heating and steam systems. All the materials are available for free from the links below.
MEASUR Tool: It is an integrated tool suite (MEASUR) to aid manufacturers in improving the efficiency of energy systems and equipment within a plant.
50001 Ready Navigator Tool: It is an online guide that can assist you in putting an energy management system in place.
Energy Performance Indicator LITE (EnPI LITE) Tool: It is an online regression-based calculator for modeling energy performance at the facility level.
Energy Footprint Tool: It can help manufacturing, commercial and institutional facilities to track their energy consumption, factors related to energy use, and significant energy end-use.
The Plant Energy Profiler Excel (PEPEx) Tool : It is an excel based software tool to help industrial plant managers identify how energy is being purchased and consumed at their plant and identify potential energy and cost savings.
Steam System Modeler Tool: The properties and equipment calculators in this tool allow the user to input the metrics of their system, generate a list of detailed steam specific steam properties, and test a variety of adjustments on individual equipment.
The Process Heating Assessment and Survey Tool (PHAST): It introduces methods to improve thermal efficiency of heating equipment. This tool helps industrial users survey process heating equipment that consumes fuel, steam, or electricity, and identifies the most energy-intensive equipment.
UNIDO’s Industrial Energy Efficiency Accelerator
This platform provides various case-studies and training materials on how to reduce energy use in industrial energy systems including the heating systems.
US EPA’s ENERGY STAR’s Energy Efficiency Guidebooks
These energy efficiency technology-guidebooks provide sector-specific recommendations for energy efficiency improvement opportunities in many different industries including chemical, petroleum refining, iron and steel, non-metallic minerals (e.g. cement and glass), and food and beverage industry, which account for 75% of natural gas use in industry in Europe.
Lawrence Berkeley National Lab’s Industrial Energy Efficiency Guidebooks
Over the years, my former colleagues at LBNL and I developed series of energy efficiency technology-guidebooks for different industries. These guidebooks are available for free from the link above.
Here is a guidebook on industrial energy auditing that I wrote a while ago:
You may find some of our publications on energy efficiency opportunities in different industries and industrial energy systems around the world helpful for your energy efficiency journey. You can find my full list of publications from this link. All the reports are available for free from GEI or LBNL or other websites.
Keep in mind that energy efficiency will benefit your organization both in the short-term and long-term. While working on energy efficiency, other medium-and long-term options such as electrification (using renewable electricity) should be considered by industrial companies in order to both increase their energy security and also lower their greenhouse gas emissions.
I hope you find this information helpful. Feel free to contact us if you need additional support in developing energy efficiency strategy for your organization.
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