AUTHOR=Koumi Ngoh Simon , Epessé Missé Samuel , Moungnutou Mfetoum Inoussah 

TITLE=Environmental and economic assessment of switching from heavy fuel oil to natural gas in industrial boilers and furnaces: Case of Cameroon, a low-income country

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Energy Research

VOLUME=Volume 10 - 2022

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/energy-research/articles/10.3389/fenrg.2022.1053576

DOI=10.3389/fenrg.2022.1053576

ISSN=2296-598X

ABSTRACT=This paper aims to analyze the environmental and economic impact of the fuel switching in industrial boilers and furnace. The analysis performed for five years’ period reveals that the total avoided emission are respectively respectively 85069 tons of CO2, 17240 kg of CH4, 4310 tons of N2O and 6630 tons of SOx. The total equivalent CO2 emissions avoided is around 87802 tons over a 10 years’ period from 2012 to 2021.. The switching results in a significant reduction of greenhouse gas.  Reduction of 17,8% of CO2 emission, 66,7% of CH4 emission and de 83,3% of N2O emission. An analysis conducted at the boiler level have showed that the carbon dioxide and carbon oxide emissions decrease respectively by 2.5 percentage points and 1.05 ppm points when natural gas is used. The same observation is made for sulfur oxide and nitro oxide emission for which the decrease of 188.3 ppm and 236.7 ppm points are recorded. Additionally, the substitution of heavy fuel oil by natural gas enable the increases of thermal efficiency by 3.3 percentage points.