Benchmarking Analysis of Energy Efficiency Indicators in Paper Mill

Paper mills consume a large amount of energy, which is an important factor restricting their sustainable development. Benchmarking is a critical method for discovering the energy-savings potential of mills. To address problems such as the absence of indicators for energy efficiency benchmarking, the influence of different basis weights on energy efficiency levels and on the estimation of energy-saving potential, this paper makes use of production line-based and process-based benchmarking in coated paperboard production. The indicator system is constructed to collect data and quantify the energy efficiency. K-means clustering is used to classify the basis weight and energy efficiency data for seven months and obtain the benchmark values. The results showed that the specific energy consumption (SEC) decreased with the increase in basis weight. An analysis of production line-based benchmarking for a paper mill in China indicated that energy efficiency reached the level of 5.92 to 6.94 GJ/t, which was 10.8 to 23.91% lower compared with the European Union best available energy level (7.78 GJ/t) and 6.28 to 24.6% higher compared with the energy consumption of American paper products integrated production units (5.57 GJ/t). These energy-saving measures should be taken into account in order to raise the energy efficiency in paper mills