Energy benchmarking of cement industry, based on Process Integration concepts

Cement industry is considered as an energy intensive industry, owing to the huge amount of heat consumed in pyro-process unit. There are many conventional methods around, which can be applied to carry out energy targeting in a cement production plant, including conceptual, mathematical or even hybrid. However, full application of these approaches would be time-consuming and costly. So, in this research, our attempt has been focused on development of a rapid approach for benchmarking of an existing plant with respect to energy consumption, and subsequently estimating an achievable scope for energy saving. To realize this goal, five different pyro-process units were simulated and then targeted using Pinch Analysis approach. Having done this conceptual analysis, the obtained results were mathematically correlated to shape a benchmarking model. The resulting model was also validated, in terms of accuracy, and was applied to other cement plants and showed an energy saving potential of up to 24%.