Plant-wide optimization opens IRPC EurAsia
Hydrocarbon Processing’s International Refining and Petrochemical Conference (IRPC) EurAsia opened to a well-attended pre-conference seminar hosted by Neste and NAPCON (FIG. 1). Perttu Tuomaala, Vice President, NAPCON, opened the workshop with a brief overview of the company, along with trends in the current operating environment (FIG. 2).
Mr. Tuomaala was followed by Matti Koskinen, Senior Technologist-Licensing, Neste Engineering Solutions; Jaako Laine, Sales Manager, and Suvi Verajankorva, Product Manager-Energy Efficiency. Mr. Koskinen provided attendees with a brief overview of the technologies Neste Engineering Solutions is providing processing industries around the world. Both Mr. Laine and Ms. Verajankorva focused their presentations on optimizing energy efficiency within refineries and petrochemical plants.
(FIG. 2. Perttu Tuomaala, Vice President, NAPCON, provided opening comments during IRPC EurAsia’s pre-conference workshop.)
Attendees then broke into groups to discuss the future of planning and optimizing energy efficient operations. The groups topics included:
- Group 1: Payback times of energy efficiency vs. other business cases
- Economical aspects and other aspects (e.g., legislation)
- Benefits of process development with energy optimization main/side focus in investment projects
- Group 2: EnPI’s to improve energy awareness and operative actions for energy efficient operations
- Energy management systems (how they guide operative work and how to commit from top management to operators)
- Measurements (how to ensure that EnPIs lead the operation in the right direction)
- Group 3: Process optimization in energy analysis
- Different energy analysis approaches (which type of approach would give the best benefits to a customer?)
- Plant wide optimization
- Benefits of a process development approach in energy analysis
- Group 4: Carbon neutral refinery/petrochemical plant
- Reuse of CO2, reduction of carbon footprint (how to take them into energy performance projects)
- Benefits of process development with energy optimization main/side focus
The workshop’s afternoon sessions focused on operator training and the future of plant wide optimization. Mika Neffling, Sales Manager, NAPCON, provided a brief introduction on NAPCON’s gamification tools/simulator for operator training. Attendees then broke out into teams to compete against each other in NAPCON’s Distiller Cup simulator (FIG. 3).
(FIG. 3. Attendees competed against each other on NAPCON’s Distiller Cup simulation tool.)
IRPC EurAsia is being held at the Scandic Marine Congress Center in Helsinki, Finland, and continues through Friday.
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