California France Forum on Energy Efficiency Technologies "How to Achieve a Low-CO2 Industrial Plant"

The 2011 CaFFEET will bring together industrialists and experts in the seven levers which can be used to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in industry. They will confront opinions, present case studies and try to provide answers to key questions regarding the relevance of these levers. In particular energy efficiency lever will be benchmarked against the other ones. The concept of low-CO₂plants will be illustrated, but also questioned.

Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) will be invited to a Technology Showcase to present the innovative technologies they propose to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the industry.

Industry is responsible for almost 30% of greenhouse gas emissions in developed countries, including direct emissions (e. g. from fossil-fuel burned on site) and indirect emissions (e. g. from electricity purchase). As the global effort to reduce greenhouse gas becomes more and more prominent, there is no doubt that the industry will be bound to decrease its emissions. Several mechanisms are already driving it in this direction, such as the Kyoto Protocol, the Climate and Energy Package in the European Union, the Executive Order 13514 for US federal agencies, the Assembly Bill 32 in California, etc.

However, it turns out that getting large decreases of greenhouse gas emissions in industry is hampered, for at least two reasons:

• The approaches assessed to reach those decreases are mainly focused on energy efficiency, and thus often lead to unattractive business models for stakeholders (e.g. the industrialist, the utility),
• Plants don’t have enough adequate in-house competences to manage large projects in this field.

A strategy to overcome those barriers and lead industrial plants to decrease their emissions could be based on the following principles:

• Considering seven levers to reduce greenhouse gas emissions : 1) energy efficiency, 2) on-site renewable energy, 3) fuel switching, 4) energy storage, 5) demand response, 6) carbon offsets, and 7) green electricity purchase. Studying their individual and combined effects should enable to identify and assess several possible business models,
• Using a holistic analysis of the plant that would identify the combination of levers that maximizes the emission reduction per invested dollar, and thus leads to a profitable business models for the stakeholders. The analysis should take into account the entire set of factors at play, including the types of processes, the local weather conditions, the carbon content of the grid electricity, the likely evolutions of the plant and the various costs,
• Setting up a partnership with an organization having competences on the seven levers, so as to ensure that all of them will be objectively allowed for in the analysis.