Moving Beyond Equipment and to System Efficiency: Energy Efficiency Potential in Industrial Steam Systems

Author: Ali Hasanbeigi, Ph.D.

Steam is used extensively as a means of delivering energy to industrial processes. On average, industrial boiler and steam systems account for around 30% of manufacturing industry energy use worldwide. In the textile industry, however, industrial boilers and steam systems account for majority of the fossil fuel used in this industry sector.

There exists a significant potential for energy efficiency improvement in steam systems; however, this potential is largely unrealized. The traditional approach in many countries is to focus on boilers only and not on the entire steam systems that include steam generation (boilers), distribution, recovery systems, and even steam end-use. While the use of more efficient boilers results in energy savings, optimization of the entire steam system will result in much larger energy savings. In developed countries, more attention is being paid to system optimization rather than individual equipment efficiency. In many developing countries, there is a need for this shift of paradigm to focus on system efficiency and systems optimization.

Figure: Steam System Schematic (Source: U.S. DOE/AMO, 2012)

A few years ago, I led a UNIDO-funded study to develop and apply a steam system energy efficiency cost curve modeling framework to quantify the energy saving potential and associated costs of implementation of an array of boiler and steam system optimization measures. The developed steam systems energy efficiency cost curve modeling framework was used to evaluate the energy efficiency potential of coal-fired boiler (around 83% of industrial boilers) and steam systems in China’s industrial sector. Nine energy-efficiency technologies and measures for steam systems are analyzed.

The study found that total cost-effective (i.e. the cost of saving a unit of energy is lower than purchasing a unit of energy) and technically feasible fuel savings potential in industrial coal-fired steam systems in China was equal to 23% and 28% of the total fuel used in industrial coal-fired boilers in China, respectively. The CO2 emission reduction potential associated with the cost-effective and total technical potential is equal to 165.82 MtCO2 and 201.23 MtCO2, respectively. By comparison, the calculated technical fuel saving potential for industrial coal-fired steam systems in China is approximately 9% of the total coal plus coke used in Chinese manufacturing in 2012 and is greater than the total annual primary energy use of over 160 countries in the world in 2010.

This report is published by UNIDO and can be downloaded from this link.

Cost-effective opportunities for energy efficiency improvement in the steam systems have been identified but frequently are not adopted, leading to what is called an “efficiency gap”. This is explained by the existence of various obstacles especially non-monetary barriers to energy-efficiency improvement such as lack of information and knowledge in companies especially in small and medium enterprises (SMEs), management concerns about other matters especially production rather than energy efficiency, lack of financial resources especially in SMEs which makes it difficult to adopt even cost-effective measures/technologies, lack of top management commitment and understanding, uncertainty about the new technologies and the fear of production disruption, lack of incentives by government and lack of enforcement for government regulations, etc.

Policies such as information dissemination and training programs for energy efficiency improvement and steam systems optimization, top management awareness-raising programs, financial incentives especially for SMEs, provision of steam systems assessment tools and guidelines, etc. are some of the programs that can address the aforementioned non-monetary barriers.

Many of the steam systems optimization measures involve improved operational and maintenance practices, which can be undertaken within a continuous improvement approach within industries. Hence, the adoption of energy management systems such as International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 50001- Energy Management Systems can aid in implementation of such measures in a more systematic manner. In addition, energy management systems can provide a framework that helps to ensure that the energy savings from steam systems optimization measures are sustainable and do not diminish over time. A principal goal of the ISO 50001 standard is to foster continual and sustained energy performance improvement through a disciplined approach to operations and maintenance practices. Therefore, it is crucial for policymakers to promote and incentivize the adoption of ISO 50001 or other energy management systems in industrial plants.

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Infographic: Deep Electrification of Textile Industry

Author: Ali Hasanbeigi, Ph.D.

Over 50% of final energy demand globally is for heating. Around half of that is for heating demands in the industry sector. When talking about electrification, the focus has mostly been on the transportation and to some extend building sectors. The industry sector has often been ignored when considering deep electrification. Even if we electrify the heat demand for the entire transportation sector and building sector in the world, that only covers 30% and 25% of world’s final energy use, respectively.

Most of the heat needed in the textile industry is low and medium temperature heat which is relatively easier to electrify.

The infographic below highlights some general aspects of electrification in the industry sector. There is a substantial need for more research and analysis on electrification potential in different industry subsectors and electrification technology R&D for the manufacturing sector.

Please feel free to contact us if you have any question. Also, don't forget to Follow us on LinkedIn and Facebook to get the latest about our new blog posts, projects, and publications.

To download the high resolution image file (JPEG) of the infographic, click here.

Infographic: The Profile of Energy Use in Industrial Motor Systems

Author: Ali Hasanbeigi, Ph.D.

According to International Energy Agency, around half of the electricity used globally is consumed in electric motor systems. Industrial motor systems account for over 70% of manufacturing electricity consumption in different countries. In the global textile and apparel industry, the electric motor systems account for even higher, around 90%, of electricity used in this sector. The inforgraphic below is prepared by Global Efficiency Intelligence, LLC to summarize some key information on energy use in motor systems worldwide.

Please feel free to contact us if you have any question. Also, don't forget to Follow us on LinkedIn and Facebook to get the latest about our new blog posts, projects, and publications.

Energy Management Tools for Textile and Apparel Companies

Author: Ali Hasanbeigi, Ph.D.

Textile and apparel industry comprises a large number of plants that, together, consume a significant amount of energy which result in substantial greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

The following tools can help engineers and managers in textile and apparel companies to manage and reduce their energy use.

The link to each tool is provided in the Resources>Tools section of our website.

Textile- and Apparel-Specific Tools:

1. Energy Efficiency Assessment and Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction (EAGER) Tool for the Textile Industry. EAGER Textile tool developed by our director, Dr. Hasanbeigi, and allows you to evaluate the impact of selected energy efficiency measures for the textile industry by choosing the measures that you would likely introduce in your facility, or would like to evaluate for potential use. It is available in both English and Chinese.

2. SET tool: It is a self-assessment tool specific for textile manufacturing processes. It's developed under Energy Made-to-Measure platform.

3. Energy Distribution Support Tool (EDST): It can be used where energy audit data is not available, the tool estimates energy distribution throughout the various processes and auxiliaries. It also allows constant monitoring of consumption. It's developed under Energy Made-to-Measure platform.

4. Energy Management and Benchmark Tool (EMBT): It compares the energy consumption data with the production data. It generates energy efficiency indices and it reports on the dynamics of consumption. It's developed under Energy Made-to-Measure platform.

5. Self-Assessment Tool (SAT): It is an instrument for self-evaluation which allows companies to identify the most promising Best Practices for energy saving for the company. It's developed under Energy Made-to-Measure platform.

U.S. DOE Energy Assessment Tools:

1. MEASUR Tool: It is an integrated tool suite (MEASUR) to aid manufacturers in improving the efficiency of energy systems and equipment within a plant.

2. 50001 Ready Navigator Tool: It is an online guide that can assist you in putting an energy management system in place.

3. Energy Performance Indicator LITE (EnPI LITE) Tool: It is an online regression-based calculator for modeling energy performance at the facility level.

4. 50001 Ready Navigator: It is an online guide that can assist you in putting an energy management system in place. The Navigator has been developed by DOE to align with the structure and requirements of ISO 50001 Energy Management Systems.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. 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.
   MotorMaster+ Tool: It is designed for industrial energy coordinators, facility managers and engineers, plant electricians and maintenance staff, procurement personnel, and utility auditors who are interested in improving the energy efficiency of motor systems at industrial facilities.

9. AIRMaster+ Tool: Helps users analyze energy use and savings opportunities in manufacturing compressed air systems. Use AIRMaster+ to baseline existing and model future system operations improvements, and evaluate energy and dollar savings from many energy efficiency measures.

10. Pump System Assessment Tool (PSAT): This tool helps manufacturers assess the efficiency of pumping system operations. PSAT uses achievable pump performance data from Hydraulic Institute standards and motor performance data from the MotorMaster+ database to calculate potential energy and associated cost savings.

11. Fan System Assessment Tool (FSAT): This tool helps manufacturers quantify energy use and savings opportunities in manufacturing fan systems.

U.S. EPA Tool:

• Energy Tracking Tool: This tool will help you track your energy performance and meet your energy management goals easily. The tool will track your energy use, cost, and intensity, as well as greenhouse gas emissions.

The link to each tool is provided in the Resources>Tools section of our website.

Demand Response Potentials in the Textile Industry

Author: Ali Hasanbeigi, Ph.D.

Demand Response (DR) helps utilities to manage the peak electricity demand by temporarily shifting the demand on the consumer side instead of building new power plants to meet the short-time peak demand. On the other hand, customers use demand response to reduce their electrical cost using the time-of-use price signals. Nowadays, work is underway to automate the process using automated demand response (AutoDR).

In this post I will not get into the details of DR or AutoDR and rather discuss the DR potential in the manufacturing sector. I believe one of the main barriers to DR in manufacturing is that the DR potential in this sector is not well understood by utilities, companies and other parties involved.

Based on my experience on energy efficiency and demand side management in industry in the past 14 years, for a manufacturing sector or process to have a great potential for Demand Response (DR), it should have one or more of the four characteristics shown in the figure below.

Note: A bottleneck is a stage in a process that causes the entire process and the production rate of the final product to slow down.

Let me open this by giving a couple examples below from the textile industry:

There are many DR potential in the textile industry. The first example for the textile industry is in the yarn production process. One of the main process is called “spinning process” which uses different machines such as Ring frame, Open-end machines, etc. The spinning process has the following two DR-friendly characteristics:

1. It is a batch process

2. It is a bottleneck process. Often, intermediary products that are fed into spinning machines get lined up for hours on the plant floor waiting to be processed by spinning machines. Having a proper storage capacity will allow to store enough feeding product for spinning machines and shut down the previous process, which account for around 30%-40% of electricity demand of the entire yarn production plants, for few hours during the DR period.

Another significant potential for DR in the textile industry is in wet-processing plants. Wet-processing plants conduct preparation, dyeing, printing, and/or finishing of yarn and fabric and other textile products. Many batch processes exist in wet-processing plants. Also, several processes like dryer, Stenter, or batch dyeing machines can be bottleneck processes that provide DR opportunity. Often wet-processing plants work on several different orders and products; thus, proper production scheduling can provide great DR opportunity. To take advantage of this, there needs to be high level of coordination between different departments within a plant who are in charge of production planning, energy management, paying utility bills, etc. Figure below illustrate the concept of DR potential in production processes with batch processing, storage capacity and a bottleneck process.

To sum up, textile manufacturing sector is a complex and heterogeneous sector. Even within one industry subsector, there are completely different subsectors. However, there are great potentials for energy saving and Demand Response in the textile industry . More in-depth understanding of production processes and technologies and energy systems in the textile industry will allow us to tap into these potential.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any question. Also, don't forget to Follow us on LinkedIn and Facebook to get the latest about our new blog posts, projects, and publications. Also see below our related publications and tools.

Some of our related publications are:

1.     Hasanbeigi, Ali; Price, Lynn; (2015). A Technical Review of Emerging Technologies for Energy and Water Efficiency and Pollution Reduction in the Textile Industry. Journal of Cleaner Production. DOI 10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.02.079.

2.     Hasanbeigi, Ali; Hasanabadi, Abdollah; Abdolrazaghi, Mohamad, (2012). Energy Intensity Analysis for Five Major Sub-Sectors of the Textile Industry. Journal of Cleaner Production 23 (2012) 186-194

3.     Hasanbeigi, Ali; Price, Lynn (2012). A Review of Energy Use and Energy Efficiency Technologies for the Textile Industry. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 16 (2012) 3648– 3665.

18 Emerging Technologies for Energy and Water Efficiency, and GHG Emissions Reduction in the Textile Industry

Author: Ali Hasanbeigi, Ph.D.

The textile industry uses large amounts of electricity, fuel, and water, with corresponding greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) and contaminated effluent.  With regard to energy use, the textile industry’s share of fuel and electricity use within the total final energy use of any one country depends on the structure of the textile industry in that country. For instance, electricity is the dominant energy source for yarn spinning whereas fuels are the major energy source for textile wet processing.

In addition to using substantial energy, textile manufacturing uses a large amount of water, particularly for wet processing of materials, and produces a significant volume of contaminated effluent. Conserving water and mitigating water pollution will also be part of the industry’s strategy to make its production processes more environmentally friendly, particularly in parts of the world where water is scarce.

In 2016, the world’s population was 7.4 billion; this number is expected to grow to 9.5 billion by 2050. The bulk of this growth will take place in underdeveloped and developing countries. As the economy in these countries improves, residents will have more purchasing power; as a result, per-capita consumption of goods, including textiles, will increase. In short, future population and economic growth will stimulate rapid increases in textile production and consumption, which, in turn, will drive significant increases in the textile industry’s absolute energy use, water use, and carbon dioxide (CO2) and other environmentally harmful emissions.

Several other reports also document the application of commercialized technologies. However, today, given the projected continuing increase in absolute textile production, future reductions (e.g., by 2030 or 2050) in absolute energy use and CO2 emissions will require further innovation in this industry. Innovations will likely include development of different processes and materials for textile production or technologies that can economically capture and store the industry’s CO2 emissions. The development of these emerging technologies and their deployment in the market will be a key factor in the textile industry’s mid- and long-term climate change mitigation strategies.

However, information is scarce and scattered regarding emerging or advanced energy-efficiency and low-carbon technologies for the textile industry that have not yet been commercialized. That was why a few years ago, having the higher education background in both textile technology engineering and energy efficiency technologies, I wrote another report that consolidated available information on 18 emerging technologies for the textile industry with the goal of giving engineers, researchers, investors, textile companies, policy makers, and other interested parties easy access to a well-structured database of information on this topic. Table below shows the list of the technologies covered.

Table. Emerging energy-efficiency, water efficiency, and GHG emissions reduction technologies for the textile industry (Hasanbeigi 2013)

A few years ago when I conducted several day-long training on energy efficiency in the textile industry for hundreds of engineers and manager of textile companies in China, one major feedback we received, which did not surprise me, was that they did not know about most of the commercialized and emerging technologies we introduced. Engineers and manager are busy with day-to-day routine which rarely involves energy efficiency improvement.  

Also, you can check out the Energy Efficiency Assessment and Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction Tool for the Textile Industry (EAGER Textile), which we developed a few years ago. EAGER Textile tool allows users to conduct a simple techno-economic analysis to evaluate the impact of selected energy efficiency measures in a textile plant by choosing the measures that they would likely introduce in a facility, or would like to evaluate for potential use.

Don't forget to Follow us on LinkedIn and Facebook to get the latest about our new blog posts, projects, and publications. Also see below our related publications and tools.

Some of our related publications are:

1.     Hasanbeigi, Ali; Price, Lynn; (2015). A Technical Review of Emerging Technologies for Energy and Water Efficiency and Pollution Reduction in the Textile Industry. Journal of Cleaner Production. DOI 10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.02.079.

2.     Hasanbeigi, Ali; Hasanabadi, Abdollah; Abdolrazaghi, Mohamad, (2012). Energy Intensity Analysis for Five Major Sub-Sectors of the Textile Industry. Journal of Cleaner Production 23 (2012) 186-194

3.     Hasanbeigi, Ali; Price, Lynn (2012). A Review of Energy Use and Energy Efficiency Technologies for the Textile Industry. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 16 (2012) 3648– 3665.

References:

Hasanbeigi, Ali. and Price, Lynn 2015. A technical review of emerging technologies for energy and water efficiency and pollution reduction in the textile industry. Journal of Cleaner Production 95 · May 2015 with 213 Reads

Infographic: Textile and Apparel Industry’s Energy and Water Consumption and Pollutions Profile

Author: Ali Hasanbeigi, Ph.D.

Although the textile and apparel industry is not considered an energy-intensive industry, it comprises a large number of plants that, together, consume a significant amount of energy which result in substantial greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions too. 
The textile and apparel industry and especially textile wet-processing is one of the largest consumers of water in manufacturing and also one of the main producers of industrial wastewater. Since various chemicals are used in different textile processes like pre-treatment, dyeing, printing, and finishing, the textile wastewater contains many toxic chemicals which if not treated properly before discharging to the environment, can cause serious environmental damage.

With global population growth and the emergence of fast fashion, the worldwide textile and apparel production are increasing rapidly. In 2014, an average consumer bought 60% more clothing compared to that in 2000, but kept each garment only half as long.

The Infographic below shows the Textile and Clothing Industry’s Energy and Water Consumption and Pollutions Profile.

Don't forget to Follow us on LinkedIn and Facebook to get the latest about our new blog posts, projects, and publications. Also see below our related publications and tools.

Some of our related publications and tools are:

1.     Hasanbeigi, Ali; Price, Lynn; (2015). A Technical Review of Emerging Technologies for Energy and Water Efficiency and Pollution Reduction in the Textile Industry. Journal of Cleaner Production. 

2.   Hasanbeigi, Ali (2013). Emerging Technologies for an Energy-Efficient, Water-Efficient, and Low-Pollution Textile Industry. Berkeley, CA: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. LBNL-6510E

3.     Hasanbeigi, Ali; Hasanabadi, Abdollah; Abdolrazaghi, Mohamad, (2012). Energy Intensity Analysis for Five Major Sub-Sectors of the Textile Industry. Journal of Cleaner Production 23 (2012) 186-194

4.     Hasanbeigi, Ali; Price, Lynn (2012). A Review of Energy Use and Energy Efficiency Technologies for the Textile Industry. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 16 (2012) 3648– 3665.

5.    Also, you can check out the Energy Efficiency Assessment and Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction Tool for the Textile Industry (EAGER Textile), which I developed a few years ago while still working at LBNL. EAGER Textile tool allows users to conduct a simple techno-economic analysis to evaluate the impact of selected energy efficiency measures in a textile plant by choosing the measures that they would likely introduce in a facility, or would like to evaluate for potential use.