Guidebook for Using the Tool BEST Cement

Abstract

The Benchmarking and Energy Savings Tool (BEST) Cement is a process-based tool based on commercially available efficiency technologies used anywhere in the world applicable to the cement industry. This version has been designed for use in China. No actual cement facility with every single efficiency measure included in the benchmark will likely exist; however, the benchmark sets a reasonable standard by which to compare for plants striving to be the best. The energy consumption of the benchmark facility differs due to differences in processing at a given cement facility. The tool accounts for most of these variables and allows the user to adapt the model to operational variables specific for his/her cement facility.

The tool offers the user the opportunity to do a quick assessment or a more detailed assessment – this choice will determine the level of detail of the energy input. The detailed assessment will require energy data for each stage of production while the quick assessment will require only total energy used at the entire facility (see Section 6 for more details on quick versus detailed assessments).

The benchmarking tool provides two benchmarks – one for Chinese best practices and one for international best practices. Section 2 describes the differences between these two and how each benchmark was calculated. The tool also asks for a target input by the user for the user to set goals for the facility.