Let’s close the week with a short post about energy saving opportunities. The pain of higher energy costs is fresh on my mind with an unexpected trip by car from Austin to Houston and back with gasoline prices now just shy of $4/gallon USD.
Back in May, I wrote about an AIChE paper Emerson’s Doug White presented, How to Save Energy through Advanced Automation. Doug is a principal consultant and vice president for advanced process control (APC) services, and has many years of experience justifying, designing, installing and commissioning APC applications for process manufacturers.
If you didn’t get a chance to hear Doug present this at the AIChE Spring meeting, or read the PDF of the presentation, you may have a chance to see him live in your area to get your energy-saving questions answered. He’s teaming with Scott Pettigrew, an Emerson senior energy consultant.
This seminar series will begin in the Houston area, in La Porte, and will be jointly hosted by Emerson and its local business partner, Puffer Sweiven.
From the seminar flyer, here’s what it covers:
Survey the root causes of excessive plant energy usage and how automation can reduce consumption. Review a systematic approach to identifying potentially high payback improvement areas and solutions. Opportunities can originate in the process, measurement devices, valves, or controllers. Learn basic principles and key concepts to understand the nature of challenges and options. Actual plant case studies will be presented. Specific operational improvements in the following areas due to enhanced automation performance will be addressed: reduced fuel costs, reduced electricity usage, reduced steam costs, increased equipment availability, reduced compressor costs, improved boiler efficiency.
The date is August 21st from 7:30 to 1pm U.S. Central time at the Puffer Sweiven La Porte office. Send an email to RSVP a spot.
Rumor has it that they’ll be another session further East along the Gulf Coast, and possibly other locations. I’ll update this post as I hear more.
If you have interest in your area, send me an email and I’ll pass it on to Doug, Scott and the team.