Akademia Baru Efficiency Benchmarking of the Iron and Steel Industry via the Benchmark Curve : A Review

Evidence on rising global temperature, melting of ice caps, and withdrawal of glaciers brings attentions to the enhancement of energy efficiency in energy intensive industries. Having a realistic comparison between one plant and the best practice technology (BPT) in operation in the field helps significantly to distinguish and diagnose the potentials where measures towards energy efficiency improvement would be applicable. In this regard, for manufacturing industries, one of the most widely used energy benchmarking tools is the Energy Benchmark Curve. An energy benchmark curve plots the efficiency of plants as a function of the total production volume from all similar plants or as a function of the total number of plants that operate at that level of efficiency or worse. This paper reviews the methodology through which the benchmark curve is obtained for a specific industry followed by a comparison of energy intensity for the iron and steel industry among China and the US. According to the international energy benchmark curve for the iron and steel industry, the savings potentials per ton of crude steel for the US. and China have been respectively 4.1 and 7.1 gigajoule comparing with the BPT in the field. Finally, an overview over certain measures to enhance efficiency of such plants is presented. Copyright © 2014 Penerbit Akademia Baru All rights reserved.