Software ups production at bioethanol plant
5 Apr 2007
Farmer-owned operation in US reports over $3 million in productivity gains
London -- Mid-Missouri Energy (MME) has reported over $3 million in annual benefits through implementing new process modelling software to improve ethanol production at its Malta Bend, Missouri plant. The US company is a farmer-owned operation in Malta Bend, Missouri which generates 50 million gallons of corn-derived ethanol per year.
MME deployed Dryer Control -- a model predictive control (MPC) application from Pavilion Technologies -- to improve performance of the dryer and associated stillage processing operations. The deployment enabled MME operators to eliminate bottlenecks throughout the dryer stage of the process.
According to Pavillion, its software enables MME to increase the ethanol production rate by 6%, reduce energy consumption by 2.1%. Overall, it added, the project achieved ROI in less than six months.
MME has subsequently decided to extend additional Pavilion applications across the entire production process, said Chris Wilson, the company’s plant manager: “Our ability to de-bottleneck the dryer process, while maintaining more consistent DDGS product, resulted in immediate value and paved the way for our plant-wide rollout.”
According to Pavillion, its software enables MME to increase the ethanol production rate by 6%, reduce energy consumption by 2.1%. Overall, it added, the project achieved ROI in less than six months.
MME has subsequently decided to extend additional Pavilion applications across the entire production process, said Chris Wilson, the company’s plant manager: “Our ability to de-bottleneck the dryer process, while maintaining more consistent DDGS product, resulted in immediate value and paved the way for our plant-wide rollout.”
