ENGINE & TURBINE TECHNOLOGY
Finning offers a range of CAT engines
BIG SAVINGS MANUFACTURING
Manufacturing is an energy-hungry industry, requiring huge quantities of both heat and electricity. Therefore it is ideally suited to take advantage of combined heat and power systems, says Nigel Thompson
T
he manufacturing sector is the UK’s biggest energy user, accounting for 16.5% of national demand. Every year plants and
factories all over the country use the equivalent of 27.7m tonnes of oil, producing a varied range of goods. As vital as the sector is, there will always be calls to reduce energy use for both environmental and financial reasons. Although there are substantial initiatives in place across the industry to help boost efficiency, it is also possible to reduce the financial and
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environmental costs of producing the energy in the first place. Tis can be difficult for companies that rely almost entirely on electrical power, but many products also require huge amounts of heat at various points in the manufacturing process. Indeed, according to a report commissioned by the UK government, the industrial and manufacturing sector uses roughly the same amount of natural gas as it does electricity – most of which is used to produce process heat and steam.
COMBINING PROCESSES, REDUCING COSTS
As the name suggests, combined heat and power (CHP) – sometimes known as cogeneration – is a technology based around generating both electricity and heat from a single fuel source. Tis is such a valuable technology because producing heat and power at the same time is considerably more efficient than generating them separately. After all, conventional power stations produce their electricity by driving turbines with steam that is usually just released from a plant‘s chimney.
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