Textile mills start saving power after energy audit

LAHORE: The textile industry has stepped up a drive to save electricity as 42 spinning mills, after their energy audit, are saving up to 10 per cent power without any additional cost. Under the process, Germany’s GTZ is training 25 energy managers of the mills in sustained energy conservation.

The News has found that basic textile units are the biggest consumers of electricity in the textile sector. Electricity accounts for 30 per cent of input cost of the spinning industry and modern weaving units. Their representative organisation, the All Pakistan Textile Mills Association, has associated itself with the National Productivity Organisation, the Asian Productivity Organisation and German institute GTZ to get energy audit of the entire spinning and weaving sector done.

The textile mills are saving energy cost merely by adjusting certain procedures without any additional cost on the advice of auditors. This alone has slashed the cost of production of yarn by three per cent.

Though more mills demand energy audit, the capacity of APO auditors is limited as they have brought only one set of testing equipment to Pakistan. Each energy audit takes up to 10 days. The APO auditors have trained local auditors who can be engaged in other mills but expensive testing equipment is not available.

However, the All Pakistan Textile Mills Association has arranged two sets of testing equipment which has increased audit capacity to three mills at a time. The auditors have completed audit of 42 units after speeding up the process, but it has been estimated that even at a high pace it will take years to conduct energy audit of over 400 spinning units.

In order to cope with increasing demand of energy audit, the APTMA has provided all the mills with generic reports of the already audited mills.

“Though one solution does not fit all, unaudited mills can select a report that is nearest to their operational procedure and take remedial measures to conserve whatever electricity they can before an official audit is conducted,” an APTMA spokesman said.

In the meantime, the APTMA has associated itself with Germany’s GTZ for training 25 energy managers of the mills which already have an energy plan and are seriously interested in reducing electricity cost.

According to selection criteria for a year-long energy conservation course, the mills should have a dedicated energy manager and an in-house energy conservation plan. Under the course, energy managers will be trained in sustained improvements in energy conservation of mills.

These trainee energy managers are mostly qualified electrical engineers. They are being trained to conduct a baseline audit of textile units as is being done by APO auditors. In addition, they are being trained to audit the processes and develop an energy information system to ensure sustained improvement in electricity use.

It has been found that a further saving of 10 to 15 per cent can be achieved if processes are streamlined in a way that conserves energy.

However, this will need some investment and the APTMA is hopeful that the Asian Development Bank will soon provide a special low mark-up fund for investment needed for increasing energy conservation.

A study conducted by the National Productivity Organisation (NPO), with the assistance of international energy experts, reveals the spinning mills can improve energy efficiency by 10 to 15 per cent simply by better utilisation of available facilities.