Framework to Assess Eco-Efficiency Improvement: Case Study of a Meat Production Industry

The industry sector accounts for nearly a quarter of the total global final energy and heat makes up two-thirds of that parcel. Sectors such as food & drinks, steel, cement, ceramic and glass, among others represent a considerable part of the energy consumption thought their predominant electric consumption and thermal processes. The meat production industry corresponds to the food & drink industry one of the most representative manufacturing industry in terms of sales turnover and energy use in the European Union. Such is associated to considerable environmental impacts, namely on emissions of equivalent carbon dioxide (CO2eq). Within this sector, the main energy demanding systems are refrigeration systems and steam boilers, with the former being responsible for a great electric energy use within a meat production plant. In order to reduce the CO2eqemissions in an industrial plan and so to contribute to the promotion of industrial eco-efficiency, several improvement measures are proposed, which for instance include energy efficiency improvement measures (waste heat recovery technologies and strategies and cooling improvements), renewable energy integration (solar water heating systems and concentrated solar power) and alternative fuel integration (biomass and biogas fuel integration). The paper presents the development of a framework for the assessment of eco-efficiency improvements widely applicable, namely to manufacturing industries. It has been applied to a case study — meat processing industry and the results have shown an increase of the eco-efficiency indicator up to 8.1% for the energy efficiency measures, up to 22.7% for the renewable energy integration and 10.3% for alternative fuel integration. The research progresses subsist on characterisation of energy key performance indicators (KPI), improvement barriers, improvement of electric energy use in refrigeration components, optimisation of carcass chilling processes, waste heat recovery and integration of renewable energy, alternative fuels and waste-to-energy technologies. A still existing gap is identified in respect to the benefits and correlation of the main improvement measures for manufacturing industries in the improvement of the eco-efficiency indicator.