Survival of the fittest is still a prevailing attitude, especially now in the context of an ever increasing fuel price. Industries are facing and have to gear themselves to face even more severe consequences of fuel price hikes. If proactive measures are not taken in due time, some cases might be even fatal.

Energy conservation means more efficient use of energy without reducing production levels and sacrificing product quality, safety and environmental standards. Energy conservation should be based on cost effectiveness, that is, it should only be undertaken to the extent that it can be justified in normal commercial and financial terms, like any other investment. In other words it means that the production plant uses less energy to produce the same amount of product with the same quality standards and requirements.

Energy conservation requires a proper and well-planned management approach. However energy conservation does not mean having to do without energy. This cannot happen. Neither would it mean rationing, curtailment or load shedding. Rather it means identifying areas of wasteful use of energy or even waste energy sources and taking appropriate actions to reduce that waste or even taking benefit from it by implementing systems to recover the energy from these wastes.

This is what leads to an energy conservation programme. But first, we need to understand the need to conserve energy.

? Sources of energy are limited. It is a well known fact that stocks of fossil fuels are quite limited. It is said that we can afford to count on fossil fuels for maybe another 50 -60 years only.

? Energy constitutes a major portion of operating costs.

? Short lead time for energy conservation vs. long lead time for new power generation

? Energy conservation costs only a fraction when compared to the cost of new power plants, new boilers etc.

? Favourable environmental impact and significant reduction in pollution levels.

The energy conservation programme

First of all any such energy awareness campaign starts from CEOs or managing directors who must, at the very outset, realize the importance of such initiatives and drive their teams towards it. Then before starting an energy conservation program the company should consider the following aspects:

What percentage of total product cost is energy cost?

What will be the relevance of starting any energy awareness campaign?

Are these waste energies identifiable?

The relative monetary value of energy conservation must be evaluated and its percentage weightage on the fuel bill.

The prelude to an energy conservation programme is to conduct an energy audit. Two major stages are involved in this activity:

Preliminary energy audit: This is also called «brief audit» or «walk through audit». It is normally carried out without instruments, and involves collection of information through meetings with management and plant personnel, especially artisans and plant operators. And conducting visual surveys to identify obvious sources of energy waste, such as steam leaks, missing or damaged insulation, inoperative instrumentation, etc.

Detailed energy audit: This is an instrumented audit of all energy consuming equipment and processes in a plant, followed by a detailed analysis of the different systems (such as energy balances and calculation of efficiencies).

Based on the energy audit, energy conservation opportunities (Ecos) are identified. Their potential savings are calculated in terms of fuel savings and financial analyses are then conducted to determine the investments involved and the payback periods. The Ecos are then ranked in terms of their financial importance for the energy committee to approve funds for implementation of some or most of the Ecos.

<B>Implementation </B>

Once the funds for the major Ecos are approved and released, the next step is to start implementing them so that energy savings can be realized in the shortest possible time. The Ecos can be categorized as follows:

No-cost/low-cost measures (housekeeping and maintenance): These are operations and maintenance ECOs. The costs involved are small so the paybacks are rapid. Such measures include: repairing of leaks of all types, maintaining optimum combustion efficiency, maintenance of pipe and equipment insulation, maintenance and repair of steam traps, and condensate return.

Medium-cost measures (process improvements): In the Mauritian context, these measures may range from say Rs 100,000/- to Rs 1,000,000/- depending on the size of the plant and volume of fuel saved. They may include: simple heat exchangers and economizers, flash steam recovery systems, power factor improvement systems, automatic combustion control systems, energy efficient lighting systems and even high efficiency motors and variable speed drives.

<B>High-cost measures (major replacement or modifications):</B> Such measures include major modifications on machines and equipment, purchase of new auxiliary equipment like pumps and more expensive heat exchangers.

The costs may range from Rs 1,000,000 to Rs 6,000,000. Elaborate controls are involved. However, for these projects, even if initial investments look quite significant they have payback periods of less than 20 months, which is quite amazing indeed. Obviously the more the fuel price increases, the payback periods become even less. Additionally these projects do impact positively on production output and quality.

Most companies will have many housekeeping and process improvement projects to complete before they consider projects in the category of major replacements.

Training outreach and motivation </B>