Auditing and Energy Efficiency of a Ready-Made Garment Factory in Bangladesh: A Case Study

Abstract

The possibilities for improving energy efficiency in ready-made composite garment factories in Bangladesh are assessed in this study. This work aims to understand the impacts of energy consumption on garment production and determine the scope of energy efficiency improvement based on energy-related data collected from a garment factory over a three-year period (2018-2020). Data from 2018 is used as the baseline and is compared to data from 2019 and 2020. It has been discovered that energy consumption has a seasonal impact. Despite the fact that electricity consumption decreased significantly during the 2020 pandemic, the energy consumption pattern in 2020 was found to be similar to that of 2018 and 2019. To improve energy efficiency, recommendations are made to modify the boiler, water pumps, gas generators, electrical motors, and lighting systems in specific ways. These suggested actions could save BDT 95 million (1.15 million US dollars) on power generation and BDT 20.5 million (0.25 million US dollars) on natural gas used for power and heat generation. These would result in a 3.75 percent reduction in the unit (kWh/kg) production energy requirement and a 3.65 percent reduction in natural gas usage per unit production, respectively, when compared to current conditions. Furthermore, these changes will provide an opportunity to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 9.78%.