Evaluating. Efficiency and Compliance Options for Large Industrial Boilers inCalifornia's Changing Local and State Regulatory Environment

摘要

For industrial facility managers, convincing upper management to invest in boiler upgrades is a difficult task. Some reasons for this dilemma include: the absence of redundant capacity to handle downtime associated with retrofit opportunities; a lack of understanding of the available technologies and energy efficiency retrofit opportunities; a lack of capital funding .for energy efficiency projects; and the historically low cost of natural gas relative to electricity. The lack of interest and understanding of these potential investment opportunities by corporate decision makers has severely limited the breadth and depth of technical and cost-effectiveness evaluations. In contrast, performing and presenting a more comprehensive evaluation to decision makers would provide a clearer picture of the numerous benefits and risks of investing or not investing in boiler improvement projects. In California, regulatory changes at Me regional and state levels are altering the.equation when it comes to investing in industrial boiler upgrades. For example, air districts in the Bay Area and San Joaquin Valley plan to significantly reduce their NOx emissions for boiler systems, and the California Air Resources Board indentified industrial boiler efficiency as one of the most cost effective measures for reducing greenhouse gases in California's industrial sector during their planning for the implementation of the State's Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (CARB 2008). The goal of this paper is to present the regulatory changes forthcoming, discuss the potential impacts on operators of large industrial boilers throughout California, and present boiler retrofit options that can achieve environmental compliance while also increasing efficiency, reducing operating costs and/or mitigating a decrease in efficiency due to NOx compliance requirements.