Evaluation of Energy Performance Indicators and Energy Saving Opportunities for the Italian Rubber Manufacturing Industry

The objective of this work is the energy characterisation and evaluation of the energy efficiency potential of the rubber manufacturing industry in Italy, exploiting the detailed data included in energy audits by large and energy-intensive companies. This sector is divided into two sub-activities: the manufacture of rubber products and the production of tyres. Existing studies are focused mainly on tyre production, and there is a lack of quantitative evaluation of energy indicators that can provide guidance for improving process efficiency. In this work, updated global and specific energy performance indicators (EnPIs) related to the production process and to the auxiliary and general services are defined and evaluated. At the same time, targeted actions and interventions to improve the energy efficiency of the sector are analysed, showing the role of different intervention areas and their cost-effectiveness. The analysis is based on 100 Italian mandatory energy audits of the sector collected according to Art.8 EU Directive 27/2012. The applied methodology made it possible to calculate specific energy performance indicators by considering the overall and sub-process energy consumption of different production sites. Based on a detailed database containing real data from recent energy audits, this study provides an up-to-date and reliable benchmark for the rubber industry sector. In addition, the analysis of energy audits allows the identification of the most effective energy efficiency interventions for the rubber industry in terms of cost-effectiveness and payback time.