Textile: Doubletex, Montreal, QC

Textile dye houses consume large amounts of water and energy for heating, washing, and rinsing operations required for textile fabric processing. In 2004, a process integration study allowed Doubletex Canada to identify water and energy saving opportunities, worth $460,000 annually, at its dye house located in Montreal, Quebec.

Process integration differs from the traditional energy audits that had been used by the plant up until that point. The process integration approach takes a systematic look at all the ways in which water and energy are used throughout a facility, allowing to identify the specific areas where improvements need to be made in order to ensure an efficient use of resources.

Substantial Savings

The process integration study identified a set of 14 measures that could potentially generate $300,000/year in energy savings, representing 17% of the plant’s total energy bill, as well as $160,000/year in water savings. All these measures required little capital expense and had attractive payback periods of one year or less.

The identified projects included, among others:

• Flash steam recovery in the condensate tank for use in heating water
• Cold water preheating through heat recovery from effluents
• The modification of a hybrid water heater to allow it to run only on combustion gas
• The modification of certain setpoints, giving way to water and energy savings

Shortly after completion of the study, Doubletex quickly implemented 4 projects and added several others on its to-do list of operational improvement projects, among which was the possibility of replacing a 500 HP boiler with an off-peak electric alternative in order to save natural gas.

Financial assistance for the process integration study, conducted by CanmetENERGY, was provided by Natural Resources Canada’s Office of Energy Efficiency (OEE).

For additional information about process integration and Pinch analysis, see the:

• Process Integration Brochure (PDF, 350 KB)
• Pinch Analysis Guide (PDF, 1.2 MB)