INSIGHT
executive INSIGHT
Managing Energy
Vidya Ramnath, Vice President, Wireless &
Services, at Emerson Process Management
Asia Pacific, discusses with Control
Engineering Asia the key challenges
surrounding energy management, and how
the company is helping customers address
this issue.
where Emerson Process Management comes in –
solving our customer’s energy management challenges
with innovative automation solutions.
Vidya Ramnath, Emerson Process Management Asia Pacific.
How big of an issue is energy
management in plant operations?
Describe your energy management
solutions.
Waste occurs in many ways including leaks, venting,
poor combustion, cyclical loading of pumps and fans,
and unnoticed equipment malfunctions. For example,
leaking steam traps could cost 5-10% of a plant’s total
energy bill. With several thousands of steam traps in
a large petrochemical facility, preventive maintenance
programs do not ensure complete coverage and timely
replacement of all steam traps. So there is always
potential for steam leaks without knowing, and such
leaks cumulatively cost millions of dollars in wasted
energy. Another example is that of leaks in compressed
air to the tune of 20-30% of the output.
Emerson provides energy management solutions
for the entire plant – from plantwide monitoring,
targeting and reporting, to improving efficiency in
energy generation and consumption and reducing
losses in distribution. We take a holistic bottomup approach to improving energy efficiency by
understanding the current operation issues and
gaps, addressing measurement and actuation, and
finally addressing control to ensure that benefits are
sustained. This helps us focus on the outcome and
deliver expected benefits to the customer.
Our pervasive sensing solutions for plantwide
monitoring addresses cost effective measurement of
key energy streams like steam, water, compressed
air and fuel with best in class measurements enabled
by wireless, and a standardized energy consumption
reporting application. Our acoustics-based sensing
technologies address leaking steam traps and pressure
relief valves. Essential assets like heat exchangers
and cooling towers can now be monitored for efficient
operations with pervasive sensing applications. Our
combustion control packages can provide a robust
solution by addressing changing heat content and
optimizing alternate low cost fuel usage for optimizing
boilers on the generation side or fired heaters on the
consumption side.
Where does Emerson come in when it
comes to energy management?
What are the major advances expected in
energy management technologies?
Looking at the long term, one could say that there
is 50% reduction potential in the industrial sector’s
lifecycle energy use. Over the short to medium
term, there is potential to save 5-15% of energy
consumption. While there are several ways to improve
energy efficiency including process design changes,
waste heat recovery, using alternate fuels and the like,
automation has the potential to bring about quickest
changes with an attractive payback in many instances,
and it is usually a very good place to focus. That is
From an automation perspective, advances in
pervasive sensing and big data applications will make
plants smarter and the enterprise interconnected.
Energy monitoring technologies enabled by wireless
and non invasive sensing will continue to evolve.
Applications to interpret energy consumption in
real time, and connect into work processes across
distributed functions through remote operations,
will ultimately remove exclusivity and elusiveness in
energy management.
CEA
The industrial sector in the Asia Pacific is the second
largest consumer of energy and producer of emissions.
Energy can consume typically up to 40-60% of the plant’s
operating budget and is the second largest cost after
feedstock. Demand for energy, and hence cost, in Asia
Pacific is expected to be high in the foreseeable future.
Studies show that 50% of the world’s growth in energy
consumption over the next two decades will come from
Asia, led by China and India, with imports rising to meet
demand.
In what ways do plants/manufacturers
waste energy without their knowing?
28 | CONTROL ENGINEERING ASIA
•
October 2014