Cement Energy and Environment

It is postulated that certain government rules and regulations also make the process more energy intensive. For instance, regulations pertaining to nitrogen dioxide (NOX) in cement plants. In order to comply with regulations, majority of the plants are converting from Electrostatic Precipitator (ESP) to bag filter which results in increase of energy requirement in the plant. It is a fact that a baghouse typically requires six times the energy to pull the flue gases through the fabric filters. Lack of awareness and mind set barrier: Lack of awareness has also been identified as a barrier for implementation of effective energy saving mechanisms like increase in stages for raw mill section in cement plant which is reportedly a not so difficult step, but is not popular amongst the cement companies. The increase in land requirement in case of some of the retrofits like increase in stages in raw mill section and higher interest rates of the projects are also identified as barriers. It has been generally noted that the cement plant and Captive power plant (CPP) whenever in combination are not performing well together. CPP is noted to have very low Plant Load Factor (PLF) of approximately 40%. The following solutions were proposed to overcome key barriers For solving the issues on finance, it was suggested by the group that ESCO can be helpful. There can be one or two pilot projects that can be implemented in India to ascertain the performance of ESCO in India. The cement companies, technology providers, financial companies and ESCO can collaboratively work together in pilot projects to experiment and deliver the desired outcomes. Company- Instead of halting the plant and modernizing the entire plant for retrofits, integration was proposed as a solution. For example, in M/s Shree Cement for conversion from 4 stage to 6 stage instead of halting the plant, company integrated next two stages with existing four stages. This process is ongoing and it is expected that by next year the plant will have all six stages operational. It was suggested that to have standard M&V procedure, cement companies and technology suppliers must work together to agree upon the standard mechanism of replacement of retrofits . For instance, fan replacement. Policy intervention may be made by government to fully utilize the potential of other states for increasing energy efficiency measures like WHR systems. Government either may revise the regulations or may try to undertake Research and Development (R&D) which can strike right balance between technology and regulation requirement. The CPP plants must be able to provide electricity to the grid at competitive prices for this cement and CPP combined model to become more financially viable. Also, the power plants can share the innovative practices to make CPP more energy efficient. The solution for the barriers like land requirement and higher interest rate of projects needs to be brainstormed. Also, during discussion it clearly came out that government is looking for financially conducive projects and discourages subsidy projects. It was suggested that R&D is required to understand how we can capture heat from kilns and radiation related work . In terms of collaboration, cement industry can collaborate with power industry for utilization of fly ash, etc. Overall, it was discussed that Indian cement industry is much better positioned than its counterparts located in other parts of the world . The major factor which is making the 56 i