Retrofit Sizing and Economics of Air Preheaters and Economizers for Process Heaters and Boilers

The conservation of energy in industrial operations is essential to meet national goals. In the short term, conservation is essentially the only option, not only to buy time to develop new reserves and alternative supplies, but also to move toward more efficient use of energy and existing non-renewable resources. We will examine conservation potential oriented to industries in Texas. But since Texas has a substantial segment of the process industries, much of this would be applicable to U.S. industrial operations. Let us first consider the status of industrial energy prior to 1974. Report S/D-10, prepared for the GEAC presents the 1973 energy use by 308 plants of Texas in the categories: petroleum refining, chemical manufacture, pulp and paper, and metal production, and also estimates potential energy savings. The data are presented in Table I. Note that the energy use was 2.46 x 1015 BTU for a production of 291 x 106 tons of product giving an average specific energy consumption (SEC) of 8.4 x 106 BTU/ton of product; and the estimated average potential energy savings falls in 20-30% range. The SEC value is useful in tracking energy conservation in a plant on an individual process as conservation proceeds