Optimal Integration of Sustainable Technologies in Industrial Parks

Abstract

Industrial parks are an important instrument to close material cycles as well as to raise the efficiency of industrial production. Spatial closeness allows the exchange of byproducts at low costs as well as energy cascades utilising precious raw materials and energy resources most efficiently. This is of particular interest if industrial parks utilise renewable resources. The utilisation of renewable resources poses new technological but also logistical challenges (Narodoslawsky et al., 2008). Industrial parks offer the possibility to treat different raw materials (and blends of raw materials) as input to various. The problem arising is to create a technology network that optimally utilises resources while at the same time maximises the value added for the members of parks and minimises the ecological pressure from the production within the park. The contribution will deal with three different case studies of industrial parks, one in Austria, one in Germany and one in Egypt. It will present a coherent and systemic approach to find the best technology network in existing industrial parks facing a retrofit situation. Process synthesis using the p-graph method (Friedler et al., 1995; Halasz et al., 2005) is employed to find a stable basic technology network, integrating existing facilities and integrating new technologies (such as CHP and direct solar energy utilisation) that utilise available resources.