Benchmarking can be a useful tool for understanding energy consumption patterns in an industrial facility and for designing policy to improve energy efficiency. Energy benchmarking for industry is a process in which the energy performance of an individual plant is compared against a common metric that represents ‘standard’ or ‘optimal’ performance. While benchmarking provides insights into the relative energy performance of the plant, it is also a good starting point for analysis of further improvement opportunities. In this paper we describe the development of an integrated benchmarking and energy efficiency evaluation tool, named BEST (Benchmarking and Energy Savings Tool). We use a process-step based benchmarking approach that allows for a wide variety of differences in feedstocks and products to be included in a fair comparison. BEST has been developed to support two Chinese integrated iron and steel plants in designing a strategic energy management program. BEST has been successfully applied to develop strategic energy-efficiency improvement targets. We describe the tool and report on its use.       

Presented at SCANMET II: 2^nd International Conference on Process Development in Iron and Steelmaking, 6-9 June 2004