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Energy Efficiency in Indian Sugar Industries
Abstract
The energy audits conducted by The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) in various sugar industries in India indicates that, many sugar plants are still using the out-dated technology, inefficient equipment's and
are following inefficient operating practices. But some of the progressive sugar plants have already initiated
various energy efficiency measures and are reaping the benefits of reduced energy consumption.
This paper brings in a comparison of specific energy consumption of inefficient sugar plants and energy efficient sugar plants with reference to the major energy consuming equipment's/sections. The case studies of many energy efficiency measures adopted by energy efficient sugar industries are discussed in detail in this paper.
... Sugarcane milling and sugar production involves cane washing, crushing, juice defecation & clarification, juice sulphination, syrup boiling, centrifuging and sugar crystal production. Electricity consumption for these and other processes is shown in Fig. 4 (Rao, 2018). ...
... Fertilizer, micro-nutrient and pesticide demand for different sugarcane seasons (CSRS, 2019).Fig. 4. Electricity consumption in different processes of a sugar mill(Rao, 2018). ...
Sugarcane is a valuable raw material for bioenergy and bioproduct production. The environmental performance of sugarcane-derived bioenergy and bioproducts vary with sugarcane cultivation practices and energy conversion technologies. A farm to factory gate life cycle assessment (LCA) is conducted to assess the energy and environmental performance of sugar production and bagasse electricity cogeneration in Maharashtra, India under different scenarios. Altogether 20 scenarios were developed taking four sugarcane seasons (adsali, ratoon, preseasonal and suru) and four cogeneration boilers (low pressure, medium pressure, high pressure and very high pressure). The functional units are the production of 1 tonne of sugar and 1 MWh of surplus electricity. The ReCiPe 2016 midpoint (H) method is used for impact assessment. System expansion is applied to assess the alternative uses of sugarcane by-products (trash, press mud and bagasse ash).
The global warming potential (GWP) of bagasse cogenerated electricity and sugar range from 90 to 142 kg CO2-eq MWh-1 and 324 to 834 kg CO2-eq t-1 among the scenarios. The water consumption potential (WCP) varies from 209 to 354 m3 MWh-1 for electricity and 768 to 2097 m3 t-1 for sugar. The Cumulative Energy Demand (CED) for electricity and sugar ranges from 0.8 to 1.2 MJ kWh-1 and 3-8 MJ kg-1. The Energy Return On Investment (EROI) differs from 2.7 to 4.5 for electricity and 2.1 to 5.3 for sugar. The alternative uses of sugarcane by-products contribute to negative emission and lower the overall GWP by 13-15%. Scenarios producing only sugar have a much higher environmental impact than scenarios producing both sugar and surplus electricity. The combination of adsali sugarcane and very high pressure cogeneration boiler provides the highest environmental benefits among all scenarios. The findings can help enhance cleaner production initiatives in the Indian sugarcane sector.
... The production of cane sugar involves sugarcane milling, juice clarification, juice evaporation, sugar crystallization, sugar paste separation, and dry product packaging. Sugarcane milling is the first step in the production of cane sugar, mainly involving heavy load equipment, the electric consumption of which accounts for more than 50% of the whole sugar production process [1,2]. Clean production is currently advocated to minimize waste and emissions while maximizing the production of manufactured products [3,4]. ...
The extraction of sugarcane juice is the first step of sugar production. The optimal values of process indicators and the set values of operating parameters in this process are still determined by workers’ experience, preventing adaptive adjustment of the production process. To address this issue, a multi-objective optimization framework based on a deep data-driven model is proposed to optimize the operation of sugarcane milling systems. First, the sugarcane milling process is abstracted as the interaction of material flow, energy flow, and information flow (MF–EF–IF) by introducing synergetic theory, and each flow’s order parameters and state parameters are obtained. Subsequently, the state parameters of the subsystems are taken as inputs, and the order parameters—including the grinding capacity, electric consumption per ton of sugarcane, and sucrose extraction—are produced as outputs. A collaborative optimization model of the MF–EF–IF of the milling system is established by using a deep kernel extreme learning machine (DK-ELM). The established milling system model is applied for an improved multi-objective chicken swarm optimization (IMOCSO) algorithm to obtain the optimal values of the order parameters. Finally, the milling process is described as a Markov decision process (MDP) with the optimal values of the order parameters as the control objectives, and an improved deep deterministic policy gradient (DDPG) algorithm is employed to achieve the adaptive optimization of the operating parameters under different working conditions of the milling system. Computational experiments indicate that enhanced performance is achieved, with an increase of 3.2 t per hour in grinding capacity, a reduction of 660 W per ton in sugarcane electric consumption, and an increase of 0.03% in the sucrose extraction.
... for instance, in the case of an electric motor, an improved motor air gap design, with winding insulation, can lead to reduction of electrical current, thereby increasing the efficiency of the motor. Energy efficient equipment can help to reduce energy demand and maintenance costs without having to carry out any extra work after installation (Rao & Naqaraian, 2012). Even though this technique has a high initial cost, once it is installed, it has the ability to reduce energy consumption without process adjustments. ...
The cement production is an energy demanding industry that requires a high degree of attention regarding energy use in South Africa. Within the last decade, South Africa has faced a shortage of electricity supply, because the maximum electricity demand has invaded the net maximum capacity and the margin of the reserve storage is reduced. This study investigates a range of barriers, drivers and opportunities to improve the energy performance of a cement plant in South Africa, in order to provide the information necessary to sustain energy efficiency improvement efforts within the cement industry. Energy efficiency can be defined as a cost-effective method of reducing cost of energy and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, resulting in extra quality of production and increased environmental benefits. Energy efficiency is widely accepted as an effective tool for improving the global energy situation. Prudent energy use by industry is a solution for a sustainable environment and industrial development. Energy efficiency and energy management cost-effective use measures provide industry with successful ways of achieving economic and social dividends in order to reduce harmful environmental impact of energy usage. Unfortunately, industries from less developed countries are slow in adopting energy efficiency and management measures; therefore, they lack the paybacks of energy efficiency implementation. This work aims to increase awareness of the need for development of South Africa’s industrial energy efficiency and industrial management policies by exploring the current energy efficiency and management practices of one of the oldest cement plants in South Africa. The study also included a survey of barriers and drivers for implementing energy efficiency measures in cement finishing mill plant; and clarified the basis for the adoption and non-adoption of cost-saving energy efficiency in South Africa industries. This research was an exploratory type of the study, conducted by means of semistructured interviews. The survey was conducted in two parts. In the first part, asked about the plant’s energy management policies that in place. In the second part, asked the respondent to complete a prepared questionnaire that cover all aspects of the study. The results show that poor energy management within the plant and low energy efficiency measures lead to an energy efficiency gap in the plant. Furthermore, it shows that important barriers that hinder the implementation of cost-effective measures within the plant are mainly due to economic related barriers to rational behavior, which are associated with the lack of plant energy efficiency due to the organization structure. The study also found that organizational benefits related to “environmental company profile” and “environmental management systems” followed by economic benefits associated to “cost reductions resulting from lower energy use” are the most high-ranking drivers of energy efficiency measures within the plant.
In this work, the performance of a commercially available aquaporin HFFO membrane was studied for concentrating the sugarcane juice by adopting appropriate UF pretreatment technique. The influences of draw and feed solution flowrates, draw concentration and its direction of flow such as co-current or counter-current on water and reverse solute flux was evaluated in batch mode. The specific reverse solute flux for counter-current mode was found to be less compared to co-current mode of operation. Improved draw solution (NaCl) flowrate increased the water flux with reduced specific reverse solute flux. The FS concentration ratio was 1.65 within 12 min of batch FO operation by using 100 g L⁻¹ draw solution. Membrane fouling was studied systematically with appropriate membrane cleaning strategy. The effect of UF clarified and raw sugarcane juice on FO membrane fouling was calculated and it was found that raw sugarcane juice led to severe membrane fouling that reduced water permeability after 60 min of operation. The membrane fouled by UF clarified juice was able to regenerate by DI water wash for 30 min, however in the case of membrane fouled by raw juice, an additional 0.1 M NaOH wash was required.
The viability of the FO process for concentration of sugarcane juice by using a commercially available aquaporin embedded hollow fibre membrane module (HFFO) (active area, 2.3 m²) is presented. NaCl is used as a draw solution (DS), and the selection of suitable DS concentration, flow conditions and flow configuration are observed to be vital aspects to minimize the reverse solute flux (RSF) and energy consumption. Further, the one dimensional mathematical model for the batch and continuous FO process using HF module is developed and validated with experimental data within the error limit of 5% for water flux and RSF. Based on the flowsheet modelling, the method for establishing the optimised FO process is presented. The optimized FO flowsheet presented in this study can concentrate the sugarcane juice from 150 g L⁻¹ to 531 g L⁻¹ with energy consumption of 92.14 WL⁻¹ of permeate and specific RSF = 1.57 g L⁻¹. Further, to commercialize FO process for sugarcane juice concentration application, the selection of suitable food-grade draw solute that can provide high osmotic pressure and low RSF is a very important aspect.
Industrial sector plays important role in energy consumption. Sugar industries by its inherent nature consume considerable amount of energy for production of sugar viz generate the energy as co-generation. There is a need to promote recycle economy, energy generation, facilitating technological progress, reduce consumption, and protect the environment. Hence, energy efficiency and conservation should be viewed as new source of energy along with energy co-generation. Co-generation in sugar industry to produce excess power is a need of an hour. Sugarcane is an Energy rich crop and one ton of cane contains about 4500 MJ energy. This paper brings out an effect of increase in load factor due to Variable Frequency Drive (VFD) at Lokmangal Sugar Ethanol and Co-generation Industries Ltd. (LSECIL) having energy generation capacity of 31.5 MW.
KEY WORDS: Milling plant, Load factor, Energy, Bagasse, Variable Frequency Drive (VFD).
Industrial sector plays very important role in global energy consumption. Sugar industries are one of the most energy consuming industries. Increasing trend in setting up of new sugar industries and capacity enhancement of existing sugar plants in India is alarming to energy requirement. These industries consume considerable amount of energy for production viz a viz generate the energy as cogeneration. The energy conservation in such plants is paid less attention as compared to that in developed countries. Energy auditing is a powerful tool, which has been successfully and effectively used in the design and performance evaluation of energy related systems. Also there is a need to promote recycle economy, energy generation, facilitating technological progress, reduce consumption, and protect the environment. Hence, energy efficiency and conservation should be viewed as new source of energy along with energy cogeneration.
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