Abstract
Water–energy nexus has been recognized as an important and challenging issue, namely in industry. This is due to industry reforms, increasing demand, and climate change. This concept focuses on the link between energy and water infrastructure. Overall, there is limited understanding of the nature of this link, as it is assumed that water is not a threat to the energy sector or an influence of the electricity to the water resources. This work aims to present and evaluate case studies related to typical industrial water circuits. These circuits represent some of the most relevant industrial sectors in terms of water–energy nexus such as: steel industry, chemical industry, paper and pulp industry, and food industry. Moreover, these sectors also cover typical industrial water circuits, namely: cooling circuit, gas washing circuit, water treatment circuit, transportation circuit, and quenching circuit. The circuits have firstly been assembled in OpenModelica software considering the equipment and physical layout of each circuit. According to their actual operation conditions, the energy and water consumption have been estimated. Furthermore, water and energy efficiency improvement measures have been proposed and implemented into the assembled models. This enabled a techno-economic assessment based on the implementation of the improvement measures. In order to contextualise these results into the industrial trends, the achieved water and energy savings are projected into potential national and sectorial savings considering the current levels of water and energy demand for each sector.
Highlights
The industrial sector represents a considerable share of both energy and water use in the world.In the European Union, industry corresponds for 25.3% of the final end-use of energy [1]
The European industry accounts for about 40% of the total water abstractions [2], such substantial energy and water consumptions lead to the need of increasing energy and water efficiency measures in industry
Several directives have been implemented in order to implement energy efficiency measures at global level, European Union (EU) level or at systems level
Summary
The industrial sector represents a considerable share of both energy and water use in the world.In the European Union, industry corresponds for 25.3% of the final end-use of energy [1]. The European industry accounts for about 40% of the total water abstractions [2], such substantial energy and water consumptions lead to the need of increasing energy and water efficiency measures in industry. One of the first benchmark policy for energy efficiency improvement in EU is the 2005 Green Paper on Energy Efficiency [3], which claimed strengthening energy efficiency policies It highlights the interdependence of energy and economic savings and the need to act on energy production and distribution. SPICE3 platform (Sectoral Platform in Chemicals for Energy Efficiency Excellence) launched with the objective to support companies in the achievement of energy savings [29] Food Industry. E4Water project (encompassed by SPIRE [27])—Aims to boost the recycle and reuse of water through the development and testing of innovative materials, process technologies and tools [28]
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