The “silent fuel” is making very loud waves. While green energy pertains to renewables and alternatives to carbon-emitting fossil fuels, energy efficiency is making a critical contribution to green energy’s numerous benefits.
Established in 2010, the Industrial Energy Efficiency (IEE) Project was the response to the growing need to improve the energy efficiency of South Africa. The United Nations Industrial Development Organisation, the Swiss Secretariat for Economic Affairs and the UK department of international development, partnered with South Africa’s department of trade and industry (the dti) and department of energy on this programme.
Now in its second phase, the programme achieved savings between 2010 and the end of 2015 of R1.7-billion, which equates to 2019 gigawatt hours and 1.9-million tonnes of CO2 emissions. Leading South African companies including metals giant ArcelorMittal have realised impressive savings through the energy interventions of the IEE Project.
“We are excited about entering into phase two of this project,” says IEE national project manager Alfred Hartzenburg. “We take forward hindsight, which makes a real difference and provides tangible benefits.
“One such hindsight was discovering that government departments are simply not talking to each other. A key performance indicator in this phase is to work with government departments, including the dti and department of higher education to ensure greater enlightenment and understanding.
“We also will continue our baseline consumption exercises and intend expanding to eight sectors, continuing to foster and promote more implementation and efficiency skills.”
Industry focus
The project is hosted by the National Cleaner Production Centre of South Africa at the Council for Industrial and Scientific Research (CSIR). Its ultimate goal is to demonstrate the positive impact, effectiveness and financial impact of in-plant energy management systems in reducing carbon dioxide emissions.
“In phase one, we identified what we considered the five industry sectors that consume as much as 50% of all energy generated in South Africa,” continues Hartzenburg. “It was decided that by industry focus we could make the biggest hit, and we targetted agriprocessing, automotive, metals, mining and chemicals.
“We looked at what kind of structure we needed and found a dearth of information. Studies have been conducted — either by self-funded groups or government departments — but absolutely no co-ordinated database existed.
“We also started an energy benchmarking process, establishing what is being consumed by industries.
“What we found important is that we created an environment that enabled us to identify and measure those already ahead of the game. Subsequently the dti and CSIR established a pool of auditors to ISO-certify companies and support our awareness initiatives and our train-the-trainer programmes to capacitate companies.”
South Africa is one of the first three countries worldwide to implement incentives and recognise progressive companies. Suggestions to vendors and manufacturers about improvements to motors, for example, have not always been initially well-received, but turnaround from criticism to buy-in has been significant.
“Where they were seeing problems, these entities are now seeing opportunities. Other reasons why buy-in was stymied included a legacy of poor government programmes and belief by [many] South African companies that they did not need any assistance to improve.
“Another global factor is the belief that energy usage is an intellectual property right. However, as entities have started sharing information and speaking to and learning from others, they move forward, which is extremely rewarding.”
Hartzenburg says the bottom line is process optimisation, which should be the protocol adopted. “Any energy efficiency efforts should precede renewable energy activities. Early adopters of our process improvement services are now seeing diminishing savings improvement as they have realised the benefits. They can now look at alternative energy options such as solar, wind and biogas.”