Energy conservation of electrolytic aluminum industry in China

The electrolytic aluminium industry is a typical energy-intensive industry, and one of the six largest energy-consuming industries in China. The energy consumption of China's electrolytic aluminium industry (CEAI) in 2011 accounted for 0.91% of China's total energy consumption and 22.7% of the total energy consumption of the non-ferrous metal industry. In consideration of the bulk of energy used in the smelting process in the non-ferrous metal industry, CEAI assumes the corresponding obligation of energy conservation and emissions reduction. Using the co-integration method, the long-term equilibrium relationship among the energy consumption of CEAI, output, electricity price and average enterprise scale is obtained. Thereafter the Monte-Carlo simulation is used to forecast energy consumption and energy conservation potential of CEAI under different energy conservation scenarios, and conduct risk analysis. The research shows that increase in the price of electricity and enterprise scale is helpful to reducing the total energy consumption of CEAI. The future energy conservation potential of CEAI is large. According to the result of the analysis the energy conservation potential of CEAI in 2020 will reach 30.51 Mtce under the moderate energy conservation scenario and 49.93 Mtce under the advanced energy conservation scenario. Some corresponding policy suggestions are recommended in this paper. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.