Analysis of the differences of the energy saving measures proposed by medium-sized industrial companies in Flanders, Belgium, in 2006 and 2009

摘要

This paper analyses the energy saving measures, proposed bythe industrial companies in Flanders, Belgium, in order tofulfil the obligations of the Auditing Covenant, the voluntaryagreement on energy efficiency to which they acceded. Thisvoluntary agreement specifically targets medium-sized industrialcompanies with an annual primary energy consumptionbetween 0.1 and 0.5 petajoules (PJ). The voluntary agreementstarted in 2005 and will end in 2013. In total 229 companiesacceded; they belong to various industrial sectors includingchemical and plastics, food and fodder, technology, textile,wood processing, printing and others. The concept is a bottom-up approach in which all of these companies were requiredto audit their energy consumption and look for energysaving measures, applicable and feasible in their specific situation.These audits took place for the first time in 2006 and forthe second time in 2009, in full economic recession. This paperanalyses the set of energy saving measures resulting fromthese audits and looks for differences in identified savingsbetween industrial sectors and between the first and the secondphase. More precisely, it verifies how the financial crisisaffected their commitment to save energy and to what extentthe companies shifted their focus from utility optimizationto process optimization. It was found that the impact of theeconomic crisis is highly dependent on the economic strengthof the companies; strong performing companies could maintaintheir level of commitment, while weaker ones proposedless energy saving measures or resigned from the covenant.It was also found that the participants indeed shifted theirfocus from non-process-related to process-related energy savingmeasures.