Strategic Energy Review

Improving energy efficiency is the most reliable way to reduce emissions and operating costs and is an important first step on your decarbonization roadmap. KBC's uniquely powerful approach to energy efficiency improvement utilizes world-leading technical expertise to ensure optimum improvement is identified, implemented, and sustained.

Heat exchangers

Energy Efficiency Benchmarking and Gap Analysis

For over 40 years, KBC has delivered projects that have reduced our client’s energy costs by 15% to 25%, improved their margins, and significantly reduced Scope 1 emissions. Using KBC's systematic and focused approach to energy efficiency improvements, our experienced consultants powered by our leading technology have helped our clients avoid over 400 million tons of CO2 emissions. This has been accomplished by using our ‘best technology’ benchmarking and gap analysis to set realistic targets, identify and implement ‘quick win’ operational improvements as well as define capital projects.

Why Energy Optimization with KBC?

People

KBC’s skilled consultants combine strong process engineering with practical expertise. Their experience spans many industrial sectors such as refining, LNG, petrochemicals, chemicals, fertilizers, renewables and they have a strong passion for emission reduction and assisting our clients to achieve sustainable improvements.

Technology

Whether you want to rigorously simulate your process and utility system in Petro-SIM®, implement a real-time utilities optimizer in Visual MESA® RTO, or are looking to optimize heat recovery with our award-winning pinch technology toolkit, SuperTarget, our consultants are experts in the deployment and practical use of KBC's world-leading technology, as we developed it. The KBC technology is licensed by many of our clients to continuously improve and sustain the results.

Methodology

Developed over many projects around the world, KBC's proven methodology is both focused and rigorous to identify and implement key energy efficiency improvements. Our approach and roadmap development provides our clients with a clear improvement plan to reduce energy costs and emissions

Knowledge Transfer

Our consultants have a passion to share experience and create a continuous improvement culture within our clients. Either through competency development during the project, targeted training programs and coaching in the use of our technology, we transfer our know-how to support our clients to sustain the energy benefits.

Benchmark and Gap Analysis
Opportunity Identification
Roadmap Development
Sustaining the Improvement
Olefin Plant IP3EM

A multi-disciplinary team of energy and process specialists will start with a thorough review to understand your processes, operations, and its constraints.  The Best Technology benchmarking methodology compares your existing operations and energy usage with an identical operation, based on identical process unit capacity, feedstocks, and products when designed and operated according to best practices.

These best practices are used to identify the key energy efficiency gaps and the overall potential to improve. Typically energy gaps are categorized as follows:

  1. The efficiency of fired heaters
  2. The efficiency of the shaft power generation
  3. The efficiency of heat integration
  4. Other inefficiencies due to design features, technology and losses

We work with you to screen for opportunities to close these gaps.

Combined with the expertise of our subject matter experts, KBC utilizes leading-edge simulation tools such as Petro-SIM, Visual MESA, and SuperTarget® Pinch technology to provide high-fidelity estimates of potential efficiency improvements and emission reductions.

We take a total site approach so that all energy integration opportunities are considered.  Our value focused approach prioritizes non investment and high ROI projects. Each of the ideas will be reviewed and simulated with our models to determine the most profitable way forward in energy and emission reductions.

KBC's Energy Improvement Roadmap details the technically and economically feasible improvement opportunities in a consistent and compatible scheme to show both individual and combined impacts on energy and emission performance.

As well as summarizing your energy improvement journey, the roadmap becomes an important decision-support tool for investment planning and is an important first stage of your decarbonization plan.

The Energy Improvement Roadmap branches out and shows the road forward for energy cost and emissions reduction based on certain investment decisions. You can decide based on reduction targets and available capital, what is the best way forward.

KBC's hands-on specialists not only help in identifying the changes, but they will also work side by side with you to implement the projects. Through the implementation of our best practice work processes, training, and technology solutions, you can have high confidence that the changes will be sustained and the full value of the improvements is captured over the long term.

Our core strength is in the combination of consulting experience with our world-class technology. A system like an energy real time optimizer (VM-ERTO) has been successfully installed at many of the sites where we completed a Strategic Energy Review.

Simulating an olefin plant, including steam cracker furnaces, with an Integrated Process, Energy, Emissions, and Economics Model (IP3EM) encapsulated in a single flowsheet, emerges as a potent tool for operational enhancement. Through the harmonization of these critical components, we achieve a notable reduction in energy consumption while concurrently boosting profit margins. This comprehensive approach ensures the olefin plant operates at peak efficiency, effectively minimizing environmental emissions and maximizing economic returns.

The orchestration of all these facets into one cohesive model empowers us to strike the ideal balance between sustainability and profitability, marking a significant stride toward a more efficient and environmentally responsible olefin production process.

Within this framework, the IP3EM, utilizing Petro-SIM to model the entire petrochemical olefin plant alongside the steam cracker furnace and utility system, grants invaluable insight into Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions at both unit and utility levels.

The equipment of oil refining

Energy Projects Save 180MM USD/year

A petrochemical company in the Middle East had the initiative to reduce its energy use at its production sites by 25% by 2025. Working with the client, KBC used Best Technology Benchmarking and Gap Analysis and an Investment Roadmap for each site to highlight non-investment and investment projects. A total of more than 150 energy-saving projects were identified to save 180 MM USD/year, including quick wins and minor investment projects worth 140 MM USD/year. The client uses Petro-SIM, Energy-SIM and SuperTarget, and is now fully trained and equipped to execute energy studies.

Michiel Spoor - Profile Picture

Michiel Spoor

Principal Consultant Energy

Meet our expert on Energy Efficiency and Decarbonization

“Saving energy will always be beneficial. Either you want to reduce your carbon emissions or want to save on operating expenses or both. KBC's Strategic Energy Review will be your first step on the road to decarbonization, addressing and sustaining your Scope 1 emissions with our experience and groundbreaking technology”

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