Energy Audit of Manufacturing and Processing Industries in Nigeria: A Case Study of Food Processing Industry and Distillation & Bottling Company

Abstract

In this paper, analysis of the energy audit of Food processing industry and Distillation and Bottling Company in Ota, Nigeria has been carried out. A walk-through energy audit of these industries was undertaken to identify the major sources of energy in use, identifying the lapses in energy usage, identifying areas to improve energy usage, determining the level of consumption of the energy sources and recommending policy measures that will enhance energy savings in the industries and Nigerian industries at large. The study observed that among a wide variation of end-use electricity consuming equipment, electric motors were the major consumer of electrical energy, accounting for 40-47% of total electric energy. Also from the identified energy use sources in the two industries, it was observed that fuel energy expended in operating the generating set, boilers or heaters in the industries had the highest value of energy use accounting for more than 65% of the total energy used. It was observed that none of the companies under review sufficiently utilized their energy as they all have their energy used ratio far below 1. This was as a result of some factors that contributed to energy waste and energy use inefficiency in the companies. Among these factors are: Poor in housekeeping of air- condition and refrigeration equipments and electric motors that dissipate much heat, use of electric motors that are weak and generate excessive noise because they have been rewound more than twice, improper lagging of boilers that lead to losing much heat, switching on of the lighting points in the day time and generation of electrical energy more than needed in the industry by some electric generator. The study concluded that energy is not sufficiently utilized in these companies and recommendations for efficient energy usage in the industries were proposed in this study.