5. The economic benefits of unit operations

In the context of energy efficiency, it is also essential to consider the economic aspect when optimizing a single operation. Studies have shown that the technologies corresponding to the best energy efficiencies generally lead to higher investment costs: their implementation requires more advanced, and therefore often more expensive, technologies. At the same time, higher efficiency means lower resource consumption for the same output. So technology is no longer the only dimension to be taken into account.

In order to be relevant, the approach used, to assess the economic interest of the different technologies, is based on a comparison of the investment cost C _i and the operating cost C _e , integrating the cost of operation and maintenance. Given, that the total operating...