POWER UP A WINNER - Plant Services

up & Running
Automation and Power Joined in oRlando
ABB event acknowledges economy, focuses on efficiency
Despite economic uncertainties and tight travel budgets,
more than 3,300 ABB representatives, partners and users met
March 23-25 in Orlando, Fla., to share practices, identify trends
and check out 72,000 sq. ft. of exhibits designed to help them
make the most of automation and power systems.
The consensus is that the current economic climate is only a
temporary impediment and distraction from pursuing the rich
potentials in optimizing production, increasing reliability and
improving energy efficiency that can come from integrating
process and electric power monitoring and control.
Among the more than 500 presentations was “Electrical
Integration: A Strategy for Achieving Unified Operations
resources
Calculate cost of condition monitoring
Azima DLI’s WATCHMAN in-house condition-monitoring
program cost calculator allows plant and maintenance
managers to calculate the annualized cost of current
machine condition-monitoring programs to help determine
the right mix of on-site and outsourced solutions. Complete
a brief questionnaire to get a detailed assessment.
www.plantservices.com/industrynews/2009/061.html
See real-world results of energy audits
In 2006, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) launched
energy-saving assessments at six industrial plants. As of
March 2009, it has completed 2,053 assessments, and
1,873 of the plants have identified energy cost savings totaling
more than $1.2 billion, implemented savings totaling
more than $190 million, and documented potential carbon
dioxide emissions reductions of 10.3 million metric tons.
www.plantservices.com/industrynews/2009/057.html.
Dig into performance-BAsed outsouRCing
The University of Tennessee (UT) offers instruction on
getting the most from service providers using performance-based
outsourcing (PBO), starting with the article
at the link below. “Companies wanting to improve their
relationships should have a sound guidebook,” say authors
Kate Vitasek and Mike Ledyard, so you’ll also find
links to a free book and UT classes on the subject.
www.plantservices.com/articles/2009/046.html
and Extended Asset Management,” by Stefan Bollmeyer,
ABB fieldbus product manager for its System 800xA.
“Electrical integration is the next frontier in driving productivity,
increasing safety and reducing costs,” Bollmeyer said.
“It enables users to achieve total plant visualization so they
can make decisions based on dollars and cents, and not just
on temperatures and voltages,” Bollmeyer said. “This also
means they maximize production by reducing the impact of
an unreliable power supply, as well as reduce energy costs by
conducting peak shaving.”
“Electrical integration also allows users to reduce operational
costs by unifying their operations environment, performing
condition-driven maintenance, reducing spares and training,
and establishing cross-discipline cooperation. They further can
reduce investment costs by minimizing cabling and engineering,
by implementing an optimized network design and by
establishing asset management for their electrical subsystems.”
Despite these potential gains, Bollmeyer added that several
persistent barriers continue to block electrical integration.
“In the past, electrical integration was hampered by a
lack of communication standards and architectural design,
high project execution and commissioning costs, and high
life cycle costs,” he said. “Organizational barriers among
departments within plants and suppliers also have hindered
integration, and these mind-set-based barriers often are
harder to deal with than the technical challenges to integration.
Many users have their own department and kingdoms,
and they want them to stay just as they are.”
To help process control and power staffs cooperate on
achieving better electrical integration, ABB recommends
they adopt a unified integration method based on a single
system environment, use a fieldbus network to handle electrification
control and management, and use the IEC 61850
standard to tie together process instrumentation, process
electrification and power distribution networks.
For example, he reported that using IEC 61850 to integrate
MV motor controls gives users several benefits, including
fewer cables, easier installation, higher performance,
alarm and events from devices, and improved diagnostics.
In his presentation on the company’s future direction, Peter
Terwiesch, ABB chief technology officer, outlined how ABB
will continue to help industry save energy and improve productivity.
“Across all industries, 80% of energy is lost between
generation and use. It’s a leaky pipe, as it were,” Terwiesch said.
12 APRIL 2009 www.PLANTSERVICES.com