Abstract
Generalized renewable energy use and the implementation of energy efficiency are two promising solutions to face global environmental challenges and achieve sustainable development. Government and large enterprises are making efforts in this direction; however, there are bottlenecks to start energy efficiency projects especially in non-intensive energy enterprises (NIEs). The aim of this work is to discuss energy efficiency improvement (EEI) initiatives and analyses a framework proposal to improve the energy efficiency implementation in (NIEs). It was applied the theory of Barrier Model to Energy Efficiency to understand the gap between the levels of opportunities implemented, and what theoretically the industrial sector could achieve. It was found that behavior barriers are relevant to understand the efficiency gap and it is necessary to have an action plan to address them. The analysis has been carried out in the fertilizer industry and the preliminary results demonstrate the advantageous reduction of energy losses.
Highlights
Concerns about energy have been increasing due to the use of fossil fuels to supply economic growth and the environmental impact related to greenhouse gas emissions
The study focuses on the framework to overcome the barriers to efficiency improvement (EEI) mainly in the socio-technical regime, addressing the following research questions: First, the study discusses initiatives to identify analyses and implement EEI measures, the theory of barrier model to energy efficiency, what factors constitute barriers, human reliability and how human behaviors are associated with this issue
There is an untapped potential to improve industrial energy efficiency and the major model used to explain the discrepancy between the opportunities implemented and what could be reached is the barrier model
Summary
Concerns about energy have been increasing due to the use of fossil fuels to supply economic growth and the environmental impact related to greenhouse gas emissions. These issues have generated uncertainty about sustainable development. The generalized use of renewable energy and the implementation of energy efficiency seem to be promising solutions; governments and enterprises are making efforts to identify effective measures to improve energy saving in manufacturing processes. In spite of managers having many concerns regarding production, clients, providers, quality etc.; energy performance needs to be included in their agenda. While energy intensive companies have seeking ways to embed energy management practices, non-intensive enterprises (NIEs) are limited in energy concerns. Besides the lack of knowledge and financial restrictions, little attention is given to energy if it represents a small part of the total cost
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