Eneregy Management In Industries : Analysis of Energy Saving potential by Steam conedensate recovery

Abstract: When speaking about energy it means speaking about life, activity, economy, growth and environmental issues. The issue of energy has been the main article all over the world in recent years, this is due to the importance of energy to life and its impact on the environment. For example, Paris climate change meeting in 2015 is one of the recent global meeting which directly related to the energy use by nations. The meeting was mainly focused up on the restriction of greenhouse gas emission which implies that industries should think about other alternative energy resources rather than fossil fuel for positive impact on climatic change. This is one of the cases that led industries into greater competition in the global market. Industries must consider energy alternatives which is safe for the environment and by using such energy a competitive product with better quality and quantity should be produced. This challenge has motivated industries to look and study the energy that they are using currently. Studies and researches show that one of the main and most abundant energy resources that most of these industries can get is by improving the energy efficiency or managing the energy that they currently use. The main aim of this thesis is to provide Arizona chemical plant (Kraton) at Sandarne on the potential energy saving by managing their energy use. The first wisdom in energy utilization is managing and using the energy they possess efficiently. In Arizona plant at Sandarne, the product named “Pitch” (a natural viscoelastic polymer or rosin) is a fuel used as the primary energy supply for the production of steam by boilers. The steam may be utilized well but the energy in the condensate (after steam loses its latent heat) is not addressed well enough. Hence this paper has studied on how significant is the energy lost by the steam condensate is and how its recovery can be used to save energy and cost. The plant produces about an average of 11.42 ton of steam each hour in a year. This steam can be returned or fully recovered (100%) as condensate from the law of conservation of mass since only energy is lost from the steam. But the plant returns a maximum of about 3ton of condensate each hour. This amount is relatively low compared to the amount of condensate recovery possibility. Recovery possibility of condensate return showed that the plant at Sandarne can return at least 8.5 ton of condensate  each hour. In comparison with the current return estimated 5.5 ton of condensate is being lost simply as waste each hour leading to about 400 SEK minimum cost loss. The calculation of cost is in minimum because the charge from water supply and condensate effluent disposal charge are not considered. In this paper only recovery from the easily recoverable steam condensate is being considered (25% of the system) which resulted in payback time of the proposed investment 1.88 years without considering the above explained charges. It is much motivating study considering the generalized approach and over simplified method. If a deeper investigation is made on the potential, it can be clearly shown that how significant the potential is in securing and sustaining energy and environmental issues. Ensuring the security and sustainability of energy which addresses the environmental issue precisely will help the plant to stay on the race of global market competition.   Keywords: Energy efficiency, Boiler efficiency, Energy management, Condensate recovery,