Power-gobbling machines

06/09/2011

With an output of about 100 million tons of cement in 2015, the total power consumption of this sector is predicted to be about 9 billion kWh of electricity, while the average saving rate is just approximately 30%.

According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, electricity consumption for industry and construction has increased rapidly with the average growth rate of 17.6% per year. Most cement businesses are in the key areas which use 1,000 TOE (Tons of Oil Equivalent) or higher. However, the results of recent energy audits at some cement factories showed that the average power saving rate was about 50.8 kWh per ton of cement (equivalent to 30.7%) and the average heat saving rate was about 1.5 GJ per ton of clinker (6.2%).

Power-gobbling machines in steel and cement industries make electricity outage severer

For the steel industry, energy consumption in this sector in Vietnam is quite high compared with international practice. For plastics factories, the average power consumption of plastics factories in Vietnam is 1.85 kWh per kg or 6.7 GJ per ton. It has been estimated that with the potential to reduce 10% of energy consumption, the amount of saved energy would be 7.7 billion kWh and the investment would be about USD 1 million...

According to an expert of the Energy Association, it is necessary to develop a system to monitor the compliance with the Law on Energy Efficiency and Conservation in industrial manufacturing facilities. Key businesses should be requested to perform mandatory energy audit, report on the status of energy use, establish new power management systems and complete plans to achieve results on energy saving. In addition, there should be accompanying support policies comes such as encouraging the efficient energy use in new industrial facilities, providing financial support for projects to upgrade and improve energy efficiency.

Industrial manufacturing facilities with a level of annual energy consumption lower than 1.000TOE should be encouraged to participate in voluntary energy audit.

Businesses that consume much energy such as steel, cement, mining companies... should make reasonable production plans, minimize the mobilization of equipment that consume lots of power such as grinders, water pumping stations, air compressors during peak hours, not put electrical devices into no-load operation. Many small measures should be considered such as turning off electrical equipment and unnecessary lights during breaks between shifts, thoroughly saving power for lighting yards, gardens and roads in industrial zones. On the other hand, they should prepare standby power sources serve the production, plans to cut the load automatically when power outages occur.

According to experts, it is necessary not only to tighten the planning for steel and cement factories which are springing up like mushroom and breaking the power planning of localities in particular and the country in general, but also to perform mandatory energy audit for key energy consuming facilities. In the long run, it is necessary to build a system to manage and monitor energy consumption in manufacturing and trading of industrial facilities, encourage and then force the application of advanced energy consumption norms per unit of product for a number of industries which consume a lot of energy.

By Minh Duc

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