Petrochemicals
The petrochemical and refining market includes industries that refine petroleum, extract oil and gas, and manufacture chemical products. Refined products include fuels, such as gasoline and aviation fuel; non-fuel products, such as asphalt and wax; and feedstock for chemical plants. Manufactured chemical products include alkalies, chlorine, plastics, resins, carbon black, fertilizer and industrial gases among others.2

For detailed profiles of individual sectors, see the EPA's industry profiles for Inorganic Chemicals; Organic Chemicals; Oil and Gas Extraction; and Petroleum Refining.

Additional information is available about the:

• Current Status
• Future Potential
• Benefits, Challenges & Solutions

The Petrochemical and Refining Market is facing rising raw material and fuel costs, increasing competition from overseas and strict emissions and environmental standards for their facilities and for the products they produce. Power reliability is another important consideration.

These industries continue to consolidate via mergers and acquisitions. Larger companies with vertically-integrated operations have tended to spin off portions of their downstream business, such as refineries and retail outlets, thereby forcing them to become independently profitable.3

To cut costs and increase profits, the petrochemical and refining market is focusing on more lucrative product lines, improving process efficiencies, and carefully tracking energy use and expenditures.4

Typically, this market has:

• Long operating hours
• Large coincident electricity/thermal loads
• High thermal demands (process heating and cooling)
• Aging boiler and other equipment infrastructure
• High steam and electricity costs
• Life-cycle economic planning.

The petrochemical and refining market is ideally suited for CHP because of these characteristics. In fact, this market has the single largest installed CHP capacity.5 It also has the largest future CHP potential. (For more on these topics see Current Status and Future Potential.)

For a diagrammatic summary of this market's energy use and loss, please see the U.S. Department of Energy's Chemicals Energy Footprint; Petroleum Refining Energy Footprint.

CHP improved efficiency, process flexibility, and reliability; lowered fuel costs and emissions; and provided revenue from sales of excess capacity. Aging boilers and other equipment were replaced.

Startup reliability in one case was poor, but improved substantially.


For additional case studies, visit Distributed Energy Case Study Database assembled by the United States Department of Energy. Cases may be searched by market sector, site name, state, power size range, prime mover, fuel type and thermal energy use.