(69c) Low Cost Opportunities for Energy Savings through Automation

Energy is the single largest controllable cost for most process plants. Incremental fuel is frequently natural gas and the recent rise in prices has caused most plants to look closely at their usage. In additon, likely future regulations on greenhouse gases place an additional premium on the associated redcution of these emissions which occurs with lower energy use. Automation and advanced automation can significantly reduce usage across all areas of the plant including process, storage/supply/distribution, and utilities. Some of these savings can be achieved with no investment, only a change in normal operating procedures. In other cases, control system upgrades including improvements to on-line analyses, measurements and control action are justified with relatively low investment requirements. Control and mangement of site utilities can be very complex with numerous and frequently changing operational decisions. Substantial savings can often be gained by upgrading the monitoring, modeling and control configurations for these utilities. Examples are presented from a number of installations to illustrate high potential areas. Investment justification requires accurate estimation of potential overall site energy effects, not just an audit of individual equipment performance improvements. A methodology is presented for this investment evaluation to insure that the results obtained are both achievable and realistic.