Energy management practices in Bangladesh's iron and steel industries

The aim of this paper was to study energy management and improved energy efficiency among large iron and steel mills in Bangladesh. The results show that there are some barriers to energy management practices among large steel mills, the most important barriers being the perceived absence of cost-effective technical measures, high perceived risks due to uncertain future energy costs and poor information quality. However, this study has shown that the reduction in energy costs due to improved energy efficiency constitutes the most important driver for energy efficiency in the studied steel mills. The results also show that most of the steel mills have not had any technical energy efficiency improvement measures implemented in the production process. Moreover, the steel mills seem unfamiliar with the concept of including energy service companies, and the lack of information or awareness seems to be the main reason behind this. The paper also finds that energy efficiency is perceived to be able to be improved by 6%-8% through energy management practices.