System Dynamics Modelling Approach For Energy Management in a Sugar Industry.

Abstract

Energy management is the judicious and effective use of energy to maximize profits and enhance competitive positions through organizational measures and optimization of energy efficiency in the process. A comprehensive energy management program is not purely  technical and its introduction also implies a new management discipline. It is multidisciplinary in nature and combines the skills of engineering, management and housekeeping. Energy management in any industry is desirable for financial, social and environmental reasons. The financial reasons focus on the profitability and potential growth of the enterprises, whereas the social and environmental reasons focus on the benefits that the enterprises, their workers and the society gets from an energy management program. The role of energy management has greatly expanded in industries. Major industries are contracting with energy service providers to implement energy management practices to improve efficiency.In the industrial sector, there is considerable scope for improving energy efficiency. In industries the major consumers of energy are fertilizer, textile, sugar, cement, and steel. It has been estimated that the total conservation potential of this sector is around 25% of the total energy used by it. System Dynamics is an approach, which takes a causal view of reality, and uses quantitative means to investigate the dynamic behavior of socio-technical systems and their response to policy. In this paper we discuss how System Dynamics (SD) can aid as an effective management tool to resolve the complex dynamic issues of sugar industry energy management.The system dynamics approach is a loop to check the behavior of a system over time. The inputs used to build a system dynamics model can be the basic performance parameters for energy management in an enterprise. Considering sugar industry as a system in whole, modeling such a system by system dynamics approach is an innovative task. Some computer software can be used to simulate the system behavior. These software simulate the system model with system dynamics approach. In this paper, the author has attempted to see how  system dynamics modeling can be used for energy management in sugar industries.Keywords- Energy Management, Sugar industry, Co-generation,  System dynamics modeling.