Abstract
Most chemical companies try to maximize their energy efficiencies due to high oil price and reinforcement of environmental regulation. An individual factory continuously has tried to reduce energy consumption or carbon dioxide discharge for high profit. Nevertheless, it is found that waste heat is disposed with forms of low or medium pressure steams. It can be improved by the aspect of entire industrial complex. Therefore, we have developed a steam network optimization method using Steam Networking Matrices(SNMs) in this research. Results from an illustrative example show that energy consumption can be reduced by optimizing steam exchange networks.