Maturity-based approach for the improvement of energy efficiency in industrial compressed air production and use systems

Highlights: • A Compressed Air Systems (CASs) Energy Efficiency Maturity Model has been developed. • The model allows companies to assess the level of energy efficiency of their CASs and to define an improvement path. • The implementation of the model allows to have a complete overview of measures implemented and to prioritize new measures. • A comprehensive questionnaire composed by 34 items has also been developed to enable self-assessment. • The model and questionnaire have been validated by application to three different industrial cases, described in the paper. -- Abstract: Compressed Air Systems (CASs) are one of the most critical utilities from an energy point of view, as their overall efficiency can be as low as 10–15% and their incidence is about 10% of the total energy consumption in manufacturing companies, and up to 25% in process industry. Therefore, improving their energy efficiency is crucial to achieve cleaner production objectives. Nevertheless, basing the search for efficiency improvements only on new technological solutions might not be sufficient in the long term to trigger continuous improvement mechanisms. The creation and diffusion of a Compressed Air Systems Energy Efficiency Maturity Model (CASEEMM) can help guiding companies in an improvement path that includes managerial and organizational enhancements. This paper presents the design of an effective CASEEMM, as well as the definition of a self-assessment tool. The presented CASEEMM is validated through implementation in three different industrial cases. Such cases have been chosen in order to test the tool in three different industrial sectors and with three different maturity levels, in order to evaluate both its effectiveness and general validity. The CASEEMM showed good potential in providing a clear and unbiased picture of industrial energy behavior.