Introduction:

In most of Cuba power plants, the application of process integration techniques related to water and energy management is still insufficient.

Objective:

To evaluate the evaporation system in sugar production process in a mill, reducing steam and water consumption to improve process energy efficiency.

Materials and methods:

The methods are based on mass and energy balances and energy exchange tools determination, and Pinch analysis, with Aspen Pinch software,

Results and Discussion:

From mass and energy balances it is obtained that, the exhaust steam consumption of the evaporation scheme is 50 797 kg/h. With Pinch analysis, an optimal consumption of 42 834 kg/h is obtained, which leads to overconsumption. An scheme modification is proposed with optimum requirements, reducing investment costs associated with redistribution of pipes to install a quadruple effect scheme. For this new variant, 44,787 kg/h of exhaust steam are obtained. Condensers water consumption is 95 160 m3/h, so the installation of film condensers with water consumption of 72 768 m3/h is proposed.

Conclusions:

The proposals reduce the consumption of exhaust steam in 13% and save water in 24% with a proposed investment PRD of one year.

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