Electricity and Control February 2021

ENERGY MANAGEMENT + THE INDUSTRIAL ENVIRONMENT : PRODUCTS + SERVICES

Energy savings through power and process management

- Uptime improvement by 3% - Unplanned downtime reduction by 15% - Process energy usage improvement by 10%

Schneider Electric, a leader in the digital transformation of energy management and automation, has launched EcoStruxure™ Power and Process to unify engineering design, operations and maintenance, and optimise enterprise-wide decision making. Developed in partnership with AVEVA and already implemented at several energy-intensive production sites globally,

Visibility removes complexity In recent years, the sometimes immense complexity of dis- parate systems has made project execution and subse- quent operations increasingly difficult. Despite advances in automation, machine learning, and analytics, it is report- ed that 30% of project implementation and maintenance costs come from a lack of efficiency and operational vis- ibility. Siloed engineers and programmers are required, separately, to build up and maintain operations. By achieving complete visibility and connectivity, busi- nesses can gain full situational awareness and build op- erational resilience across their sites and production facil- ities, improving profitability at every level, from planning and installation, to energy use and carbon emissions. “The siloed nature of industrial operations is crippling performance,” said Peter Herweck, Executive Vice Presi- dent of Industrial Automation at Schneider Electric. “Our vi- sion is a completely unified architecture, across every site and the entire supply chain. EcoStruxure™ Power and Pro- cess is another step in the journey toward complete unifi- cation, providing unparalleled access and insight to users. To drive industry development, businesses with locked-in industrial equipment and systems solutions can benefit from the solution equally. Combined with universal auto- mation, it has the potential to drive profitability and sustain- ability at every operational level and empower managers to

EcoStruxure™ Power and Process enables companies to break down the barriers between power and process control systems for greater digital efficiency.

EcoStruxure™ Power and Process allows a medium to large oil refinery, for example, producing 450 000 barrels per day, to attain 10%process energy usage improvement, reducing CO 2 output by 567 000 metric tons and saving US$210 million a year. EcoStruxure™ Power and Process enables companies to break down the traditional barriers between power and process control systems and move towards greater digi- tal efficiency. Based on the vendor agnostic principles of universal automation, the solution connects all assets at every level, across the full lifecycle and the entire supply chain. This enables plant and enterprise-wide data analy- sis to drive resilient operations and optimise energy usage to achieve profitable operation. Businesses implementing EcoStruxure™ Power and Process can expect: - Electrical, instrumentation and control (EI&C) CapEx reduction of up to 20%

New technology increases solar yield, lowers costs

comprise several PV systems which are all connected but may experience different degrees of shading, for instance. The MIPT system ensures optimal control by continuously monitoring the outputs of the various PV systems, allowing the maximum feed-in capacity to be dynamically distributed across all connected inverters several times per second. Systems that are running better can feed in more energy, making it possible to take full advantage of the photovoltaic output. “A similar approach has been used to optimise performance between the PV module and inverter. Our technology takes this to the next level and optimises the performance of individual inverters within a hybrid system. This allows us to improve efficiency significantly and increase

Micro-grid specialists at DHYBRID have introduced a new technology that lowers energy costs for stand- alone grids by achieving significantly greater solar yields. By improving system management, the recently patented inverter control system can increase the proportion of solar power bymore than 10%, with corresponding

reductions in the amount of power required from diesel generators or other connected power grids. The Maximum Inverter Power Tracking (MIPT) system achieves these results by continuously adjusting the output of individual inverters or groups of inverters in accordance with the needs of the micro-grid. Conventional micro-grid control systems treat all inverters the same, assigning them an identical maximum feed-in rate – which could be a fixed percentage of their nominal capacity. This means that within a micro-grid, PV systems that are producing high yields at any given time are treated the same as those that are not performing as well. The resulting power output losses are entirely avoidable and can have significant effects for micro- grids in particular. Micro-grids often

The dynamic inverter control system ensures higher yields, optimising the feed-in of solar energy.

14 Electricity + Control FEBRUARY 2021