Thursday, June 10, 2010

Most major corporations establish company-wide standards and procedures (S&Ps) in order to ensure consistency of facilities and operating practices. These include S&Ps for new plant planning, design, and construction. Historically, such S&Ps have not addressed the issue of energy efficiency. This paper describes a best practice approach to incorporating energy efficiency into the design of projects or new plants.

Specific language for relatively simple amendments to chemical process industry S&Ps are recommended. It will be shown, through case study example, that significant benefits can accrue from adopting and following such Best Practice standards and procedures in the areas of schedule compression, energy costs, capital costs, and reduction in water and wastewater flow, as well as carbon emissions.

Have you “hugged” your flares lately?

Flares are essential safety systems for many chemical industrial continuous processes. However, it is commonly overlooked during routine plant operation. Surveys have shown that optimization of Flare purges and Steam control can, not only save Energy, but can prevent degradation of destruction efficiency – an important factor in Environmental emissions.  

The presentation will cover the basic flare operation, common operating abnormalities,   environmental Btu limits, and opportunities to optimize against industry and manufacturer standards. Discussions will guide the audience towards common areas to probe and suggest low cost solutions for optimizing energy consumption.

LyondellBasell has experienced that Flare optimization can lead to an energy reduction opportunity of approximately 1% of total annual site energy consumption and improved confidence in destruction efficiency.

The Quest for Energy Optimization at Huntsman Performance Products

Huntsman Performance Products is a global enterprise comprised of nearly 2000 Associates, 19 operating facilities and more than two and a half billion dollars of annual revenue.  In 2007, the high and volatile costs of energy, and the long term view of continually rising energy costs, prompted the Huntsman Performance Products Division President to challenge the organization to take up improved energy utilization as a critical element of Operations Management.  Optimal use of energy was deemed imperative to competing effectively in a global market place and to future business and industry success. 

An initial “blue sky” goal of reducing energy utilization by 10% was given with the challenge to adjust priorities and focus the organization to achieve or exceed that goal. 

Starting from a blank slate, an Energy Management Process was conceived, created and evolved with progress to deliver significant improvement results.  In 2008, five year strategic improvement objectives were developed and sanctioned as part of an expanding Manufacturing Excellence Initiative.  A goal of 25% reduction by 2011 was established. 

In the 3 years through 2009, energy consumption has been reduced by over four trillion Btu’s; and is on track to achieve the 2011 goal .  This presentation will cover the path taken; key process development steps, methods of approach, successful endeavors and learning opportunities.

BASF Corporation has an established energy management process that has been applied to its manufacturing sites for many years. Recently, BASF set global targets to increase energy efficiency in production by 25% and reduce specific greenhouse gas emissions by 25% by the year 2020 compared with 2002. To advance toward this goal, an annual target of a 3% reduction in energy used per ton of product was set for 2008. Through various optimization efforts, BASF was able to exceed this target. A total of 67 projects were implemented at 17 different production sites, resulting in a 3.5% reduction in Btu/Ton of product for all of BASF Corp. The projects included a wide range of improvements, including: Advanced process controls; Increased heat integration; Improved insulation; Increased reactor yields; Increased electricity generation by reducing letdowns, Steam trap repairs; and, Distillation pressure optimizations.  BASF has found that implementation of energy efficiency improvement opportunities are best managed via a team approach. This approach allows a number of disciplines to be involved providing a better understanding and insuring a greater amount of future participation. The intent is to establish energy conservation as a core value within the manufacturing site culture. Annualized 2008 energy savings were 2,277,068 x 106 BTU, with associated C02 emissions reductions of 132,070 tons.

Super Boiler Installation Demonstrating Near Zero NO_x and 93% Efficiency

Owners of steam boilers throughout California are subjected to the nation's most strict limits on NOx emissions. California is the only state that has enacted legislation to reduce emissions of CO₂ through a combination of market-based incentives and energy efficiency rebates. Del Monte Foods Modesto designed and installed a steamboiler with greater than 93% efficiency and less than 3ppm NO_x. Coupled with a back pressure turbine generator, the CHP system provides power at a heatrate less than 4000btu/kw-hr.

Industrial Heat Recovery and its Utilization Potential

Industrial Heat Recovery has clearly been identified as one of the largest opportunities for energy efficiency improvements, green house gas emission reductions and significant cost savings for the US industry. Nevertheless, it is not implemented across the board and faces significant challenges from financial to process-related constraints.

This presentation will present an overview of the industrial heat recovery opportunities in the US industry. It will present an additional focus on the opportunities in the petrochemicals and refinery sectors.

The US DOE has been conducting Save Energy Now Assessments for the past 4+ years and they have covered almost 700 plants (unit operations) across the US. This presentation will present results of potential heat recovery opportunities that have been identified in these assessments in the petrochemicals and refinery sectors.

One of these opportunities is the use of waste heat to provide refrigeration (chilling). Energy Concepts has been installing these industrial waste-heat fired refrigeration systems at industrial sites. Two case studies of applications and installations of waste heat fired refrigeration systems in refineries will be presented in this paper.

Since 2008 Texas Industries of the Future has worked with US DOE and the US Council on Energy-Efficient Manufacturing to test the components of a national certification program for plant energy efficiency at four Texas plants.  The program is based on implementation of an international standard for energy management (ISO 50001) and demonstrated improvement in energy intensity over a 3 to 10 year period.  This program will be valuable to any corporation seeking to sustain their energy savings, control energy cost or manage energy-related emissions.  The presentation will cover the results of the pilot project, the structure of the program, and the status of ISO 50001.