DIAGNóSTICO ENERGéTICO DE LOS PROCESOS PRODUCTIVOS DE LA PANELA EN COLOMBIA

unrefined sugar consumption in colombia is the highest in the world (corpoica-fedepanela, 2000) and its production is one of the main agricultural activities of the national economy. in spite of this, the use of energy resources in this sector has been deficient (ica, 1986; corpoica, 1996). for this reason, various research groups and institutions have proposed alternative designs for unrefined sugar production systems. this article evaluates the energetic consumption in these and other systems. mass and energy balances are developed and indexes are defined for diagnosing energy performance of the facilities. it is shown that the degree of technological development and the state of infrastructure directly influence the energy efficiency of the process and that it is possible to considerably improve energy use by means of simple modifications, especially thorough a good thermal design of the systems, as has been shown in a recently-built oven designed by one of the authors.