Serious Sustainability

Are you light, superficial green? Or are you dark, committed green? For instance, anyone can put a variable-speed drive (VSD) on pumps, fans and other rotating equipment—and almost everyone should, but that's only a good beginning.

Certainly, $4 to $5 per gallon gas and other skyrocketing energy costs are gouging consumers, businesses and manufacturers alike, so many are undertaking efficiency projects to meet public, investor and government demands. Some programs include the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Energy Star program (www.energystar.gov), sustainability scorecards from Walmart (www.walmart.com) and P&G (www.pg.com) and the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes (www.sustainability-index.com). However, some individuals and organizations are also asking if they can alter process applications and even questioning whether they need to run some processes at all. These pioneers are trying to take sustainability beyond its initial focus to include making products that are themselves greener and allow users to operate and live more sustainably. In short, sustainability is longer-term and focuses on a widening circle of processes, material producers, users and consumers, while efficiency concentrates on traditional, here-and-now improvements in one or a few devices or operations.

Low-Hanging Efficiency Fruit

Still, despite its narrower focus, basic efficiency can improve operations in huge numbers of equipment and applications, produce massive savings and lay the groundwork that leads to future sustainability.
For instance, China National Petroleum Corp. (www.CNPC.com) recently implemented Invensys Operations Management's (ion.invensys.com) SimSci-Esscor ROMeo process optimization software and services at its Jilin Petrochemical Co., which is reported to be northeast China's largest integrated refining and petrochemical production facility (Figure 1). CNPC is using ROMeo to formulate real-time responses to changes in utilities prices, feedstock variation and process conditions to achieve sustainable energy savings. CNPS reports that the software's off-line operational analysis and on-line plant modeling for ethylene production also lets it study and validate the feasibility of various energy-saving strategies and parameters affecting energy saving before implementation. ROMeo was applied to Jilin's entire ethylene complex, including 10 cracking furnaces and quenching, compression, cracking and separation equipment across its 700,000 tons-per-year ethylene production unit, and helped reduce the refinery's energy consumption by 5% overall.

Real-Time Data = Efficient Responses

Figure 1: China National Petroleum uses Invensys' SimSci-Esscor ROMeo process optimization software on 10 cracking furnaces and quenching, compression, cracking and separation equipment at Jilin Petrochemical's 700,000-tons-per-year ethylene unit to make real-time responses to changes in feedstock variation, process conditions and utilities prices, and reduce its energy consumption by 5%.

"CNPC is devoted to reducing our worldwide carbon emissions, and one of the best approaches is to invest in technology that can maximize our energy efficiency," said Liu Hongji, deputy factory director at CNPC Jilin. "ROMeo software helps us save energy, improve visibility into our operations and drive productivity. It also reduced the energy consumption of our ethylene production unit and improved the whole plant's effectiveness."

Similarly, to reduce its huge gas, electric and water bills and comply with national energy use and emissions regulations, Lian Yuan Steel (www.lysteel.com) in Loudi City, central Hunan province, China, had already upgraded its equipment and processes, but recently decided to seek further gains by consolidating the plant's comprehensive energy data and analyzing it for improved scheduling and management decisions. The 1200-square-meter plant and its 15,000 employees coke, smelt, sinter and roll more than 6.5 million tonnes of sheet, rebar and other steel per year and earn more than $3 billion (Figure 2).

Closing the Intelligence Gap

Figure 2: To pay its energy bills and follow China's usage and emissions rules, LY Steel implemented Schneider Electric's SCADA and historian software and I/O components, improved energy efficiency by 50%, reduced maintenance costs by 70% and saved $3 million per year.

As a result, LY Steel's engineers worked with Schneider Electric's (www.schneider-electric.com) energy management solutions (EMS) division to implement its Citect-based SCADA and historian software, as well as six SCADA I/O servers with 30,000 variables, 5000 alarms, 3000 trends, one historian server and two SQL servers—all with less then one-second observed response time. This SCADA solution communicates with many different hardware systems used at LY Steel, including Siemens and the former GE Fanuc PLCs and electric meters that use special protocols, such as IEC-60870-104 or DNP#3.    

Shortly after implementing Schneider Electric's EMS tools, LY Steel reports that it achieved a dramatic 50% improvement in its energy efficiency, 70% reduction in maintenance costs and a comprehensive savings of $3 million per year.