APC guides Czech chemical plant to Euro2m energy savings
26 Jul 2010
Litvinov, Czech Republic – Unipetrol is achieving energy savings of Euro2m/year following the implementation of an advanced process control (APC) system at a steam cracker in its ethylene production plant at Litvinov. The technology has also delivered a return on its investment in the system within six months, according to a statement from AspenTech, which supplied the system.
AspenTech’s APC system employs DMCplus, a linear controller engine, which is widely used in the bulk chemicals industry to keep process parameter at optimal set points. Unipetrol deployed 18 of the controllers, all of which remain online more than 95% of the time.
In addition to achieving better control of the process, Unipetrol is now using the APC to compare actual data from its plant to targets created using a model, on a daily basis. This, said AspenTech, allows the company to pinpoint how the plant is performing and adjust the set points so that they can run the facility closer to constraints.
“We quickly saw that using DMCplus, in particular, would help us to drive up productivity levels and increase our business agility,” said Miroslav Malecky, senior process engineer responsible for APC and process modelling , Unipetrol. After completing a week-long training course, “Our engineers were able to get ’up and running’ on the new system very quickly.”
The APC system also supports changes in business strategy or shifts in business focus at Unipetrol, whose primary focus in implementing the solution was throughput maximisation. With the plant now running at a healthy 70-80% of capacity, it has shifted its focus to energy savings and energy management.
For his part, Unipetrol’s Malecky said the APC system had “enabled us to make the whole plant more energy efficient, by ensuring that operators have enhanced control over the operation of the furnaces; by freeing up their time to focus on other key strategic tasks within the plant and by lowering overall fuel consumption.”
The APC solutions are currently just being used on Unipetrol’s ethylene plant in Litvinov. However, based on the results of the project, AspenTech has been running a series of energy management workshops for key stakeholders from Unipetrol and active discussions are now under way between the two companies about rolling the solution out across all of Unipetrol’s facilities.
