MechChem Africa November-December 2020

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formanagement to adopt different attitudes. “Through theMiningand Industrial Energy Optimisation (MIEO) seminars, we presented the key shift from installing more energy ef- ficient components such as IE3 motors, to looking for bigger gains by making improve- ments towhole production and energy usage systems. This is now widely embraced and we can confidently say we have changed the way things are done. By first looking at the specific energy needs of the process, we can make bigger changes to efficiency, removing throttling controls on pumps and fans, for example, and using VSDs to run the motors at slower speeds. Lowcost system-wide initia- tives routinely achieve savings of 15 to 35% across a whole plant,” he notes. He says that South Africa was ripe for these interventions. At a steel mill, for ex- ample, a chiller and a pump farm were being used to supply cooling water for a hot strip mill. The water was being taken down 18 °C, but then transported throughhalf a kilometre of uninsulated piping before getting to the mill,” he recalls. The initial IEE Project was funded until 2014, but the work was too compelling, so it was extended for a further year. “After that, the implementing agent UNIDO went to the World Bank’s Global Environmental Facility (GEF), which agreed to funda secondphaseof the project for a further five years, taking us to where we are today,” he continues. Thesecondphasehadtwoverysharpfocus areas: To overcome finance issues, a financial mechanism was added to accelerate imple- mentation. “We also started to implement gender mainstreaming as a sharp focus, not only to encourage women to become active participants in industry, but to balance the roles and skills sets of women and men in the workplace.Today,67%oftheIEEProject team are women and the IEE Project pioneered a very successfulWomen inEnergymovement. A mid-term review by UNIDO in 2019 indicated that while the project was excep- tional in its focus onmeetingKPIs, it was very mature in that it had adapted to changing conditions. By way of example, Hartzenburg saysoneoftheKPIswastoextendtheoffering of energy systems optimisation and energy managementtrainingcoursestoincludeTVET colleges. “When theTVETpolicy changed, we engaged with the universities of technology instead–CPUT, TUT, VUT,MUT– tooffer our training courses as post-graduate modules. “We also trained college lecturers to become ISO 50001 energy management trainers. As a result, our training is now able to bridge the gap between graduates and plant technicians, giving engineers some practical know-how and the technicians the background theory needed to understand their systems,” he adds.

While conducting an assessment during fan expert training at a sinter plant, Alf Hartzenburg inserts a pitot tube into one of the duct holes of a dedusting fan system.

Energy Master Plan, for example,” he adds. While the IEEProjectwill not be extended beyond 2021: “We can’t stop doing the good things we are doing. So we have developed a plan to keep the NCPC-SA as a driver of en- ergy efficiency initiatives – because we have a long journey ahead of us. “Listening to the AEE virtual awards cer- emony, I was blown away that a project born in South Africa had achieved such high inter- national status against the best international competition in the world,” he says. Concluding, Hartzenburg asks: “What might have happened to South Africa’s elec- tricitygridand its industrieshad theNCPC-SA and the IEE Project not been around?” q

Due to the success of IEE Project energy management and energy systems optimisa- tion courses, new employment and career opportunities have also been spawned. “We now have an energy management business services sector. Before the IEE Project was launched, we had a database of about nine consultants. Todaywe candrawonmore than 100 energy experts, mostly trained by us,” he points out. Looking to the future, Hartzenburg notes that mature companies are now experienc- ing diminishing returns from conventional optimisation strategies, so the IEE Project has begunhelping themto implement cleaner energycombinationsofPVsolar,wind,natural

gas engines and energy storage: hybrid solutions that not only reduce emissions and improve energy efficiency, they also reduce dependence on an unreliable elec- tricity grid. “We are also harnessing the power of digitalisation and 4IR to find and respond to energy saving opportunities, andwe are starting to see some global best practice examples.We can nowpredict the failure of steam traps before they fail and cause production losses, and use connected pressure, tem- perature and flow monitoring to rapidly respond to changes in a plant’s demand for steam,” ex- plains Hartzenburg. Another less heralded role of theNCPC-SA is the support for the South African Government to de- velop better energy policies. “We engage in processes such as the IRP, theNational EnergyEfficiency Strategy, 12 ℓ tax incentives and the dtic’s Green Cape Renewable

South Africa’s IEE Project received the Best International Project Award in recognition of its successful efforts to mainstream energy management systems and pioneer energy training and professional development.

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