The Industrial Sector

You have just learnt in which the industrial sector uses about 37% of the total commercial energy available. The main consumers of energy are fertilizer, cement, textile, sugar, and steel industries.

Figure shows the relative consumption of electricity through several sectors such as Iron and Steel (18%), Textile (13%), Fertilizers (10%), Aluminium (13%), Cement (10%), Chemicals (9%), Paper (4%) and Sugar (3%) inside the industrial sector.

The industrial sector is highly energy intensive and its efficiency is well below in which of other industrialized countries. For instance, the best achieved annual energy consumption by an integrated steel plant is reported to be about 7.17 giga calories per tonne of crude steel against the international figure of 5.6 giga calories per tonne of crude steel. This shows that a great deal of effort will be needed for improving the energy efficiency in the industrial sector.

                         Figure: Electricity Consumption in Various Industrial Sectors

Studies have shown in which the energy savings potential in the industrial sector ranges from 20-30% associative to a business-as-usual scenario (refer to Table). If industries can promote energy conservation, it could lead to substantial reduction within their costs of production. For example, energy services such as compressed air are frequent overlooked and yet a leak in a compressed air line could be wasting lakhs of rupees every year.