KEEP-AGI Energy Audit Services

As part of activities to strengthen academia-industry relationship, and make academic research more relevant for the development of industries, KEEP facilitated the conduct of an energy audit at Vestor Oil Mills Limited, a food processing company located in Kumasi, in the Ashanti Region.

The College of Engineering, KNUST, recognises that, to continue to make its research relevant to society, it will need to collaborate with private companies, public institutions and government agencies to bring its services to their doorsteps. It is in light of this that, the College, through its KEEP programme has undertaken this community service of energy auditing, with the target of helping industries to optimise their electricity usage.

The energy audit, which was conducted over a three-day period, took inventory of energy supply and consumption in the company. In addition, the operation mechanisms of major equipment such as pumps, motors, boiler, lighting system, heat exchangers, cooling towers, etc, were monitored to evaluate how the rate of electricity usage of such equipment could be optimised.

The leader of the energy audit team, Dr. Richard Opoku, indicated that initial analysis of the data has revealed potential savings in electricity consumption by about 15-20%, by incorporating energy-efficient motors together with energy management techniques for other equipment in the facility. He also indicated that the company has a potential to diversify its electricity portfolio to include renewable energy options, such as solar energy, to augment electricity demand at the company. Waste heat recovery from the oil cooling room could also be harnessed for preheating feed water to the boiler, with the potential to further optimise overall energy usage in the company.