An Electrical Efficiency Audit on a Paper Factory with a Focus on Energy Monitoring Systems and Industrial Motors

Abstract

Earth's average temperature continues to rise, triggering dangerous weather events that occur simultaneously and interact with each other, such as storms, floods, droughts, and wildfires. The main cause of this global warming is the excess of greenhouse gases emitted by human activities. To answer to this climate challenge, most developed countries have taken actions to reduce their carbon footprint. Industry is the third most polluting sector. This article contains research done in a paper industrial site in Belgium to reduce its carbon footprint through energy efficiency. The first part of the paper is a focus on monitoring and targeting system opportunities and barriers. The second part is about motors. Motors are generally among highest consuming equipment in an industrial site. An analysis of motors high efficiency and variable speed drive potential have been done. The savings identified are the following: Financial = $60,336; Environmental = 70.6 CO2 tons (794,000 kWh of electricity, 8.7% of the site electrical consumption). The cost is $128,680 and the payback is 2.3 years.