Energy Saving Opportunities At Engineering Polymer Plant

Abstract

Nowadays plastic industries consume the major portion of energy supplied from the main power stations as they are continuous running plants with larger capacities. Hence energy conservation opportunities should be the most noticeable projects by Industries in Return on investment and savings in terms of rupees annually. It also reduces the power factor of such industries and production costs (Rs/kg). During summer training at Polymer Plant, it was decided to go for energy saving projects in which savings opportunities were to be identified and implement those opportunities with full technical analysis. As a result of through study of production plant process and energy consumption pattern of each and every energy consuming devices the following opportunities were decided to be implemented with greater annual saving on capital investment from company. 1. Insulation jacket on extruder heaters 2. Improvement & optimization of Fans & Blowers. 3. Cooling tower fan automation. The implementation of insulation jacket on extruder heaters with appropriate critical thickness of 2 ” would save 26 kW of heat loss which leads to annual saving of 13 Lacs. As continuous running machines, blowers were optimized for 22.5 kW power saving and approximately 14 Lacs annual save in Electricity bills of manufacturing unit. The implementation of automation of cooling tower fan operations would save 40 kWh daily in rainy and winter season.