State of the art in process integration

If improving energy efficiency of an industrial process system by inserting energy saving technologies reveals itself as an efficient approach, several difficulties are to be overcome: (1) the optimal insertion has to be examined at the global level considering the possible synergy or mutual exclusion of the different technologies to be inserted in a given industrial production site, (2) the R&D effort made in the development of new intensified energy saving technologies increases the number of technologies available on the market, (3) the size standardisation of the technologies on the market increases the difficulty of selecting the optimal technology and (4) the evolution of the prices on the market may influence the profitability of an ongoing project. The goal of the EXSYS II project was to integrate the knowledge of experts in energy saving technologies, processes and energy integration in order to develop methods and computer tools to help solving this problem. The consortium chose to use web-based tools for co-ordination and developments.