Date of Graduation

5-2015

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering (MSME)

Degree Level

Graduate

Department

Mechanical Engineering

Advisor/Mentor

Nutter, Darin W.

Committee Member

Couvillion, Rick J.

Second Committee Member

Roe, Larry A.

Keywords

Compressed air; Efficiency; Energy intensity; Industrial measurement and verification; Poultry processing

Abstract

Energy efficiency is the least expensive source of additional energy capacity for today's global energy expansion. Energy efficiency offers additional benefits of cost savings for consumers, reduced environmental impacts, and enhanced energy security. The challenges of energy efficiency include identifying potential efficiency measures, quantifying savings, determining cost effectiveness, and verifying savings of installed measures. This thesis presents three separate chapters which address these challenges. The first is a paper presented at the 2014 industrial energy technology conference (IETC) that details a compressed air system project using the systems approach to identify cost effective measures, energy intensity to project savings, and proper measurement and verification (M&V) practices to prove that the savings were achieved. The second is a discussion of proper M&V techniques, how these apply to international M&V protocols, and how M&V professionals can improve the accuracy and efficacy of their M&V activities. The third is an energy intensity analysis of a poultry processing facility at a unit operations level, which details the M&V practices used to determine the intensities at each unit operation and compares these to previous works.

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