Energy efficiency in the iron and steel industry : Factors influencing improvement of energy efficiency in Jiangsu, China

Abstract

Improvement of energy efficiency is widely accepted as an efficient measure to relieve the crisis of energy resources and environment pollution; however, the energy utilization efficiency in China is still at a low level: the unit GDP energy consumption in China is 4 times to the world average level. Moreover, to fulfill the commitments of reducing 40% carbon emissions in 2020, China needs to improve the energy efficiency immediately. As a major resource of energy consumption as well as carbon emission, the iron and steel industry should take more responsibility to improve energy efficiency. However, current research in China mainly focuses on national or provincial energy efficiency, while the research on industrial energy efficiency is seldom. Furthermore, scholars tend to study factors that contribute to improving energy efficiency rather than factors constraining it. This has blocked the way of proposing operative methods for improving energy efficiency to some extent. In this paper, I analyze conditions and factors that enhance and constrain energy efficiency in nine steel corporations in Jiangsu province. Primary data have been collected by semi-structured interviews. Introduction of more advanced technology, market competition, regulatory pressure by the central and local governments and enterprise management on energy efficiency are factors that may enhance energy efficiency and that I look into. Risks involved in investing in energy-efficient technology, uncertainty about the applicability of available technologies, lack of skills among the workers and lack of energy efficiency culture in the enterprises are the constraining factors that I look into. Due to the differences in the size and financial strength of the enterprises, the main enhancing and constraining factors vary with different types of enterprises (large-scale enterprises, medium-scale enterprises and small-scale enterprises). At the end of this paper, five measures are proposed in order to improve energy efficiency in the iron and steel industry