Cogeneration technology for the metal-processing sector

Enclosed are the results of a feasibility study for a cogeneration facility at a company manufacturing large ship and off-shore oil-platform chains. The sizing of the main cogeneration equipment has been based on the assumption that the main energy demand is that needed to keep the quench bath at a temperature of 12 °C, thus compensating for the heat input from the chain proper and furnace gases. The main difficulty of the study has been to assess, with the maximum possible assurance and precision, the quench water-flow rate, which at present is cooled down through the cooling towers and in the future through an absorption cooler driven by the waste-heat present in the exhaust gases of a 1000 kW natural-gas engine. To this end, energy audits for each furnace have been carried out, identifying and quantifying each energy flow. As a technique for energy saving and efficiency improvement, cogeneration has been wide spread across all industrial sectors in Spain.