Energy Efficiency: A practical solution for slashing operational cost in textile industry

When reading the GTZ energy News No. 6 August 2007 on how Pakistani's textile industries wasted energy, I was in a dismay since such case could and is happening in major textile producers in developing countries.

It is of course a daunting task to urge textile industry to start complying with energy efficiency. Most of them use outdated equipments. New investments on manufacturing technologies creating better energy efficiency are out of the discussion.

Yet, the approach of creating awareness might be the first suitable step. One of the ideas is to introduce textile industries with an energy audit. With this instrument, the amount of wasted energy converted into monetary values on operation and manufacturing processes is disclosed.

For a company with restricted budget on new investments, energy auditor could argue on the operational cost that could be saved through allocation of fund on energy efficiency measures, for instance by changing the lighting with more energy efficiency light. Other approach would be the increase of illumination intensity in rooms through the use of innovative painting which is capable to increase up to 20% illumination of the light reflection.

Next step with companies allocating a significant budget for energy efficiency, apart from the two approaches above, the company could start implementing better insulation. This way, the power use for air conditioning could be reduced since better insulation gives less energy demand to cool the room. One however should consider that such approach may also require the changing of air conditioning pipes as well as significant redesigning of the ventilation system which could significantly increase the cost.

Further step definitely is an investment on new textile producing technology with superior energy efficiency. This may require the large portion of the total budget allocated for the energy efficiency program. Even at the extreme case, the company may need to reinvest in new plant with energy efficiency and environmental friendly approaches. In the return, the company could save a significant portion of operational cost and maintain its business competitiveness.