Energy consumption analysis of Spanish food and drink, textile, chemical and non-metallic mineral products sectors

This paper provides quantitative information for energy consumption from four different industry sectors based on an energy analysis obtained by means of in-situ energy audits and complementary information. The latter information was taken from Saving Strategy and Energy Efficiency in Spain (Estrategia de Ahorro y Eficiencia Energética en España 2004–2010, E4) documents and the 2009 Industrial Survey of Spain from the National Statistics Institute (Instituto Nacional de Estadística, INE). The results show an estimate of energy consumption for each sector, namely Spanish food, drink and tobacco (9.6%), textile (4.5%), chemical (14.7%), and non-metallic mineral products (24.3%), as well as the degree of inefficiency for each, obtained by means of a stochastic frontier production function model. These results are combined with the energy consumption analysis to identify potential energy saving opportunities around 20.0% of the total energy consumption for all studied sectors. These energy saving opportunities are classified according to thermal or electrical energy consumption and percentage savings of the total energy consumption.

► This study presents the analysis of four Spanish energy-consuming industrial sectors.
► The four selected sectors account for 33.0% of the total industrial SMEs.
► An audit was carried out in several factories from each analysed industrial sector.
► Stochastic Cobb-Douglas frontiers were used to estimate production frontiers.
► Potential energy saving opportunities around 20.0% of the total energy consumption.