Energy saving and fuel switching opportunities in Ceramic Products Share Company-Ethiopia

Several energy saving opportunities in the ethiopia ceramics factory are obtained by this research and can be directly implemented in the factory. It is tried to classify some of energy saving options based on cost of implementing them and this is done by estimating the capital cost and annual cost of operation as well as saving that could be achieved by implementing the saving option and by calculating the payback period of the measures. The result of the current research has showed that more saving can be achieved by investing more on identified energy saving opportunities. Energy saving measures identified by the current research like reducing thermal mass of existing kiln cars, installing new modern low thermal mass kiln cars, recovering waste heat from cooling zone of tunnel kilns especially from glost kiln, installing high speed burners in kilns, avoiding dummy firing in tunnel kilns, reducing loss of products at each step of production, applying monitoring and targeting system etc can be implemented with low cost there by resulting in huge energy saving which can pay back the investment cost in less than two years time, for most of them the payback period being below one year. But above all the energy saving opportunity that can make ceramics factory competent in local as well as in world market by greatly reducing its specific energy consumption. This measure will require substantial investment cost and change in process and the reward will be very high; saving of about 50% with payback period of below three years. The major fuel switching opportunities identified by current research and to be applied in Ceramics Factory are mainly focused on switching to cheaper fuels that can be obtained within Ethiopia thereby saving the foreign currency the country expends to import petroleum fuels. According to the researcher this can be achieved by using Ethiopian coal as fuel in spry drier which currently uses gasoil, effectively recovering heat from cooling zones of kilns to supply heat required for drying sanitary wares to save fuel used in boilers to produce hot water for mentioned purpose, and as there is plan that Ethiopia will be commercially producing natural gas in coming six years it is wise decision to switch fuel of kilns from current kerosene to natural gas. This will have multi-benefit as experiences from developed countries shows that they have already done this measure because natural gas is environmentally friendly fuel than other solid and liquid fuels and in our case it will save foreign currency for fuel of kilns when produced in Ethiopia.