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A major aim of the IEE project has been to provide as broad a picture of energy efficiency as possible through benchmarking energy consumption in three energy-intensive sectors. As a result of the work completed in early 2015 in the fertilizer, cement and iron and steel sectors, for the first time Egypt has reliable and verifiable figures on energy consumption that can be used by policy makers.

In close cooperation with the Industrial Development Authority (IDA) and under the supervision of the Austrian Energy Agency, UNIDO experts first-handedly collected data for three consecutive years from 2011 to 2013 on energy consumption, production levels, energy management and production practices from participating industries.

Energy Consumption in Egypt
The industrial sector currently accounts for around 43% of all national energy consumption. Reducing this figure will be crucial to efforts to mitigate climate change and to address Egypt’s ongoing energy crisis, driven by rising demand and falling supply, in particular a fall in gas production. Egypt has therefore made the efficient use of energy resources one of the main priorities of its 2030 Sustainable Development Strategy. Through efficiency measures, energy-intensive industries can reduce energy consumption by up to 20% by taking measures to raise energy efficiency. Implementing such changes often require little or no investment, making energy efficiency one of the most cost-effective ways to reduce overall energy bills.

Benchmarking Aims
By comparing the performance of individual plants, the benchmarking studies:
• recognize best practice
• assess performance against local sector competitors
• assess performance against international competitors

The benchmarking is not limited to data collection and analysis, but includes the development of benchmarking curves and generates future projections based on different scenarios, which forecast the potential energy requirements and consumption of the sectors based on energy efficiency measures adopted. These forecasts are critical for policy making as well as for the formulation of technical support programmes, as they provide a foundation for moving industries towards more energy-efficient practices.

The Way Forward
The benchmarking study is expected to support decision makers when adopting new policies on industrial energy efficiency. It will also contribute to international competitiveness and play a critical role in the development of road maps to help guide improved energy efficiency measures in all three sectors. Only through combined efforts to develop policies with the support of all stakeholders such as decision makers and factory owners, can Egypt’s energy shift from crisis to efficiency.

Methodology
At the planning stage, the IEE project was careful to tailor UNIDO’s benchmarking methodology to the Egyptian context and define the scope and system boundaries of the research. The data collection process was carried out in cooperation with the IDA, which provided UNIDO experts with national statistics. Moreover, surveys, sessions and meetings were carried out with 26 participating plants, which worked with UNIDO experts on collecting data over the three years. The plants were closely involved in the verification of the data to ensure homogeneity and accuracy of results. UNIDO experts and consultants analyzed the results, calculated potential savings for the participating plants, made necessary statistical adjustments, and applied other correction factors to make sure results were correct.

Sustainability
The IDA is responsible for the implementation of industrial policies and will be actively involved in the application and practice of the benchmarking results. The Egyptian National Cleaner Production Center (ENCPC), a Ministry of Trade and Industry agency, aims to carry out similar benchmarking studies beyond these three sectors, starting with ceramics.  ENCPC staff have received training on UNIDO methodology from national experts who participated in the benchmarking for other sectors, and who will also be involved in managing the implementation of the study.

Factory Owners and Decision Makers
One of the participating plant representatives said: “The benchmarking has rung the bell and given us a wake-up call. We are 10-50% below international best practices in energy consumption and yet we use the same technology, which makes no sense. We need to practice efficiency.”

Results
The results of the benchmarking across Egypt’s industrial sector indicate that the best performing companies require very little improvement to match internationals standards on energy efficiency, although at the lower end there is considerable room for improvement.

Energy efficiency is central to ongoing efforts to tackle climate change. Improving energy efficiency will not only help to curb the greenhouse gas emissions that lead to global warming but will also improve energy security by reducing demand for fossil fuels.

In industry, which remains a major contributor to worldwide emissions, Energy Management Systems (EnMS) are vital to companies’ abilities to implement and measure efficiency improvements. Therefore, it is important that these systems work effectively.

One way of ensuring this is through internal audits that assess whether the management system meets the requirements of ISO 50001. Over the past two years, UNIDO’s Industrial Energy Efficiency (IEE) project has helped 17 companies to carry out EnMS internal audits to ensure that they are ISO 50001 compliant.  Over the last three years, the IEE project also provided training to national experts so that they could conduct effective EnMS audits independently and would then be able to transfer their knowledge to partner enterprises.

Helping companies to carry out successful internal audits before they go through the process of a third party audit by an accreditation body has made the final certification process much easier. It has also served to improve understanding within company energy teams of the auditing process and of ISO requirements.

The ISO standard 50001, released in 2011, specifies the requirements for establishing, implementing, maintaining and improving an EnMS, enabling organizations to follow a systematic approach in achieving continual improvement of energy performance, including energy efficiency, energy security, energy use and consumption. The standard aims to help organizations to continually reduce their energy use, and therefore their energy costs and their GHG emissions.

Electric motor systems account for about 60 percent of global industrial electricity consumption. Electric motors drive both, core industrial processes, like presses or rolls, and auxiliary systems like compressed air generation, ventilation or water pumping. They are utilized throughout all industrial branches, though their main applications vary. Studies show a high potential for energy efficiency improvement in motor systems, in developing as well as in developed countries. The International Energy Agency (IEA) endorses that a theoretical saving of 20% to 30% of electricity consumed by all Electric Motor Driven Systems (EMDS) could be achieved if those systems were optimized, which would reduce total global electricity demand by about 10%.
However, taking a more pragmatic view, the IEA suggests an ambitious but achievable target for the global work plan: improving the efficiency of electric motordriven systems by 10% to 15%.

In the continuous stress of a production environment, there is often little opportunity to pause and reconsider the way in which electric motors are purchased, maintained, and replaced. As long as nobody is given the responsibility for company-wide electric motor asset management, employees in the production environment will continue to act on an adhoc basis, maintaining, repairing, and replacing motors in the same way they have in the past, without insight into the Total Cost of Ownership.

Under this light, the Industrial Energy Efficiency Project has supported a technical training on the optimization of motor systems (MSO) to achieve higher systems energy efficiency with the aim of qualifying MSO Experts. The training was conducted by UNIDO international experts and was attended by 40 engineers representing 16 organizations. The training objective was to provide in-depth technical information on troubleshooting and
making improvements to industrial motor systems. The training also introduced basic principles for energy efficient design of motor systems, how to successfully sell motor systems improvement projects to management and how to select a motor system optimization service provider. National experts were trained through classroom, on-the-job and coaching by international MSO experts.

The training has focused on the importance of a systems approach for improving energy efficiency. In a component approach, the engineer employs a particular design condition to specify a component.

In a systems approach, the engineer evaluates the entire system to determine how end-use requirements can be provided most effectively and efficiently. Cost-effective operation and maintenance of a motor and drive system requires attention not just to individual pieces of equipment but to the system as a whole. A systems approach analyzes both the supply and demand sides of the system and how they interact, essentially shifting the
focus from individual components to total system performance. Operators can sometimes be so focused on the immediate demands of their equipment that they overlook the ways in which the system’s parameters are affecting that equipment.

One of the biggest challenges to effectively managing energy is to accurately determining an energy management system’s impact on energy use and cost. For an industrial organization to demonstrate improvements in energy performance, the organization has to set an energy consumption baseline. An energy baseline is a reference tool that allows the organization to compare energy performance before and after a change is made to your site or system. The baseline establishes the “before” by capturing a site or system’s total energy use prior to making improvements. Without an accurate baseline, the effectiveness of an energy management system (EnMS) cannot be monitored and hence corrective actions and improvements cannot be
identified or implemented.

Developing an accurate baseline is not always straightforward. Whatever the method used for the development of a baseline is, it has to discriminate
changes in consumption caused by energy efficiency (EE) measures from changes caused by relevant variables (e.g. weather, production, product mix, etc.). These factors can cause variations that mask the effects one is trying to detect and quantify. Simple baseline development approaches usually have some degree of inaccuracy that can make them misleading, while rigorous and reliable approaches are sometimes more complex than the natural comfort level of most facility managers.

There are many approaches for establishing an Energy Baseline but they all follow the same five key concepts that govern EnMS. There are many steps that any organization should follow in order to establish its own Baseline. (1) The organization has to first identify the system boundaries, (2) then they shall identify the energy sources and (3) define the baseline period. Although the former steps might present some challenges for an
organization but they are more or less considered as the simple part in comparison to the later steps. Followed by these steps, the organization has to (4) define and account for relevant variables/drivers and (5) set energy performance indicators (EnPIs).

The main challenge is faced in the fourth step when accounting for the different variables affecting the baseline. In many cases, this is sometimes due to lack of readily available reliable and accurate data. Also when setting EnPIs, sometimes energy managers face internal resistance from the organization to change the standard organization/sector EnPIs, for example in the cement industry specific energy consumption is the “standard”
EnPI. In many cases, SEC (or any other simple ratio) is deceiving or misguiding especially where other factors are actually affecting the energy performance or when the organization experiences high baseloads.

The bottom line is that setting an accurate baseline could present the most challenging step in the Planning Stage of an EnMS. However, an inaccurate baseline could forfeit the main benefits of an EnMS and could mislead an organization in assessing their energy performance and hence in measuring the impact of EE measures and interventions.

In the framework of the national campaign for improving energy efficiency (EE) in industry “Kafa’a campaign” which aims at reaching the largest number of industrial fascilities to participate in the campagin through applying systems for improving energy management in their fascilities, the IEE project organized an event for media coaching on Wednesday 8th July at the project’s premisies.

This session aims at providing the necessary skills, technicalities and stratigies for dealing with the media to disseminate the principles of EE and the concepts of energy management systems. Media has an important role in crises management and raising awarness inside governmental organizations. The workshop targeted management and media leaders in EE specialized governmental organizations. Representatives from the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency (EEAA), Industrial Development Authority (IDA), The Egyptian Organization for Standardization and quality (EOS), Industrial Modernization Center (IMC) and the Federation of Egyptian Industries (FEI).

The IEE Project in partnership with the IMC “Industrial Modernization Center” organized workshops in four industrial cities namely: El Sadat, Borg El Arab, El Obour and 10th of Ramadan.

These workshops aimed at disseminating the concepts of energy management and raising the awareness of decision makers about the importance of Energy Management System (EnMS), its requirements, means of applying it and the benefits and opportunities offered for improving competitiveness in Egyptian companies. Moreover the workshops focused on reducing production costs and complying with the standards of the International organization for standardization ISO 50001. More than 500 participants representing 200 industrial facilities attended these workshops.

The industrial organization were motivated to join “Kafa’a campaign” and apply energy efficiency systems. “Kafa’a campaign” concentrates on raising the awareness of the Industrial sector in Egypt about the importance of applying EnMS and considering them a sustainable solution for improving energy management in the facilities, not only energy efficiency for one of the equipment or industrial units.

An information unit for “kafa’a Campaign” has been established to introduce to the industrial fascilities the importance of energy efficiency, in addition to
registration of the data of the industrial facilities that are willing to join the campaign. you can contact the unit through: info@ieeegypt.info or through campaign’s hot line: 012 8677 5669

On the 21st May, the IEE project held a workshop in close cooperation with the Industrial Development Authority (IDA) to share the results of one of the project’s main activities; providing a broad picture on Energy Efficiency (EE) by benchmarking the energy consumption and usage of three of the most energy intensive industries: Fertilizer, Cement and Iron and Steel.

Careful planning was carried out by IEE; tailoring the UNIDO benchmarking methodology to the Egyptian context. The data collection process was carried out in cooperation with the IDA, which provided UNIDO experts with the national statistics. Then UNIDO experts worked on statistics regarding energy consumption, production levels and practices used for 3 consecutive years from participating plants. These plants were closely involved in the verification of the data to ensure the homogeneity and accuracy of the results. For the first time, there are now reliable and verifiable figures regarding energy consumption in Egypt that can be used in decision and policy making.

These benchmarking reports highlighted each sector’s energy saving potentials. From the three benchmarking reports, the cement sector records the highest potential for energy savings, it can save up to 52 PJ/a while the fertilizer sector comes in the second place saving up to 36.5 PJ/a and finally the iron and steel sector can save up to 11 PJ/a. These savings are based on the scenario where each sector reaches the Best Available Technology (BAT) performance levels by the year 2050.

Benchmarking is not limited to data collection and analysis, but includes the development of benchmarking curves and presents future scenarios, which forecast the potential energy requirements and consumption of these sectors based on EE measures adopted. These forecasts are critical for future policy making and for the formulation of technical support programs, thus setting a foundation for putting industries in the direction of EE.

The industrial sector in Egypt currently consumes about 45% of the national energy consumption. In confronting the energy crisis and climate change, the optimal and efficient use of energy resources is one of the most important areas that requires policy-making by the state and is indeed prioritized in Egypt’s 2030 Sustainable Development Strategy. Priorities are not about increasing the production of energy sources or diversifying energy sources, but are about using energy better; using it in the optimal way. Through efficiency measures, energy intensive industries can save up to 20% of their energy consumption, making it the cheapest energy resource, as there are lots of strategies that can be implemented that do not require big investments.

The benchmarking study is expected to support decision makers when adopting new policies regarding industrial EE, contribute to international competitiveness and play a critical role in the development of sectors road maps towards an improved EE of these three sectors. Only through the combined efforts of policies, decision makers and factory owners can shift Egypt’s energy from critical to efficient.

You can download the three benchmarking reports from the IEE Egypt website: www.ieeegypt.org

The IEE Project was successful during the past year in supporting several industrial enterprises in the implementation of Energy Management System (EnMS). A core step in the implementation of an EnMS is the identification of significant energy users (SEUs) which are defined as the “energy uses accounting for substantial energy consumption and/or offering considerable potential for energy performance improvement”.

Compressed Air Systems (CAS) is a cross cutting technology which exist in all industries. Hence, this process should be paid more attention as its energy performance always has great potential for improvement. The data analysis of a random sample of energy-intensive industries shows that CAS have accounted for ~5% of the total energy consumed by all SEUs. Other international statistics estimate this figure as high as 10% of total industrial electricity consumption.

Air compression is around 10% efficient, with about 90% of the energy used by the compressor is being converted into heat. This means that any losses in compressed air systems are considerable and very expensive. In the EU, where energy prices are generally unsubsidized, over a 10-year period cost analysis for CAS, energy costs are 73% of the system lifetime cost.

However, it is widely accepted that many measures to reduce energy consumption require little /no investment, and whilst other actions to improve efficiency do require some investment. In both cases, the investment is usually quickly recouped through energy savings. Due to compressed air being a flexible utility that can be used for numerous applications and duties, in some cases, UNIDO experts have noted that compressed air is used as a matter of convenience in applications where other, less energy intensive alternatives, are more suitable.

Energy Management Systems (EnMS) have emerged over the last two decades as proven best practice methodology to ensure sustainable Energy Efficiency (EE) and to continually improving performance in the industry. The UNIDO Industrial Energy Efficiency (IEE) Programme supports enterprises in developing and emerging economies in the implementation of EnMS, thereby helping them improve their energy performance, productivity and environmental sustainability. The breadth and scope of the programme has expanded significantly since its inception, resulting in significant reductions in greenhouse gases and a stronger market for energy efficiency technologies and services. The Sustainable Energy For All (SE4ALL) target is doubling the rate of improvement in energy efficiency by 2030.

The Vienna Energy Forum 2015 provides an ideal opportunity to raise awareness and promote the further implementation of the EnMS programme by presenting examples of best practices that may encourage new adopters at the forum, while strengthening ties with existing partners.

Sidi Kerir Petrochemicals Company (Sidpec) is one of the Egyptian Industrial companies working in collaboration with the UNIDO-IEE project and experienced multiple benefits beyond pure energy cost savings, including increased productivity and competitiveness, reduced exposure to volatile energy prices and greater reliability of operations.

Sidpec was honored by UNIDO at the Vienna Energy Forum 2015 that took place in Austria as one of the best practitioners of EnMS that significantly saved energy. High level Egyptian delegation from the Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Trade, Industry, and SMES, Ministry of petroleum and Ministry of Electricity attended this celebration which highlight the significance of energy management and energy efficiency as a key driver for inclusive and sustainable industrial development and a substantial opportunity area to support the achievement of the SE4ALL goal on energy efficiency, and contribute to climate change mitigation.

The UNIDO Regional Office in Cairo held an event “Inclusive and sustainable industrial development: Investing in Egypt’s future” with the aim to present the Industrial Development Report (IDR) 2013 as well as UNIDO’s activities in the country.

UNIDO stakeholders in Egypt were invited to participate, among participants are the Ministry of Trade, Industry and SMEs, Ministry of Environment and the Ministry of Local Development, in addition to representatives from international agencies, private sector and civil society.

The presentation of the IDR was also an occasion for representatives from the Egyptian public and private sector, together with development specialists and beneficiaries of UNIDO interventions in the country, to discuss the present challenges and future opportunities of the industrial sector in Egypt. An exhibition was organized to showcase UNIDO projects and the strategic partnership with the Government of Egypt. It also featured products originating from field work.