Empirical investigation of barriers and drivers to the adoption of energy conservation measures, energy management practices and energy services in the Swedish iron and steel industry

JOURNAL OF CLEANER PRODUCTION

卷:84

Article

Brunke, Jean-Christian¹  Johansson, Maria^2,3  Thollander, Patrik² 

[1] Univ Stuttgart, Inst Energy Econ & Rational Use Energy IER, DE-70565 Stuttgart, Germany

[2] Linkoping Univ, Dept Management & Engn, Div Energy Syst, SE-58183 Linkoping, Sweden

[3] Univ Gavle, Dept Technol & Built Environm, Div Energy & Mech Engn, SE-80176 Gavle, Sweden

关键词: Industrial energy efficiency;    Barriers;    Drivers;    Energy management;    ESCOs;    Iron and steel;   

DOI  :  10.1016/j.jclepro.2014.04.078

来源: Elsevier

【 摘 要 】

The Swedish iron and steel industry is focused on the production of advanced steel grades and accounts for about 5% of the country's final energy consumption. Energy efficiency is according to the European Commission a key element for the transition towards a resource-efficient economy. We investigated four aspects that are associated with the adoption of cost-effective energy conservation measures: barriers, drivers, energy management practices and energy services. We used questionnaires and follow-up telephone interviews to collect data from members of the Swedish steel association. The heterogeneous observations implied a classification into steel producers and downstream actors. For testing the significance, the Mann Whitney U test was used. The most important barriers were internal economic and behavioural barriers. Energy service companies, in particular third-party financing, played a minor role. In contrast, high importance was attached to energy management as the most important drivers originated from within the company. Energy management practices showed that steel companies are actively engaged in the topic, but need to raise its prioritisation and awareness within the organisation. When sound energy management practices are included, the participants assessed the cost-effective energy conservation potential to be 9.7%, which was 2.4% higher than the potential for solely adopting cost-effective technologies. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

【 授权许可】

Free