IEN: What are the major power quality and availability problems facing industry? Their solutions?
Curtis: The major power quality and availability problems facing industry relate to very real questions about the reliability of grid-supplied power and constraints on new transmission and distribution capacity.
A 2001 study by EPRI and the Electricity Innovation Institute estimated that industrial and digital economy firms are losing $45.7 billion annually to utility outages. How these losses materialize is highly variable and industry dependent. Some companies experience no appreciable product or material loss from short-term outages but count losses in tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars if they have to send employees home. For process manufacturers, a power loss or disturbance lasting less than a second can cause substantial operational disruption resulting in lost product, lost productivity, equipment damage, and expensive downtime for repairs.
Availability remains a major concern for industry, particularly in densely populated areas where siting new power plants or transmission and distribution lines can be very difficult. For example, the California Public Utility Commission estimates that California will need an additional 1,000 MW of generating capacity per year over the next 15 years to keep up with customer demand. Because the lead time on getting that much capacity permitted, financed, and built is very long, the CPUC is predicting more rolling blackouts as early as next summer (2005).
The energy landscape continues to evolve to an increasingly decentralized model, with more power being produced closer to the point of use. So manufacturers need to consider all of the options out there to augment their utility-supplied power.
IEN: How can today''s manufacturers treat energy management more strategically?
Curtis: From a strategic standpoint, manufacturers need to exert greater control over power cost, quality, and reliability and mitigate the very real risks to their business operations of power loss. Grid power blackouts and less dramatic power interruptions are a wake-up call to the need for a much more strategic view of energy management. In general, this translates into providing backup power in support of critical processes and systems.
In the world of backup power, there has traditionally been only one option for safeguarding against power outages and the costly results they inflict: an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) with standby diesel generators.
In recent years, however, a second -- and, in many ways, more beneficial -- option has emerged in the development of on-site power systems configured for Critical Load Support (CLS). More and more manufacturers are realizing the value of investing in CLS technologies.
In the CLS approach, critical loads are fed from a common bus with dual power supply from the utility and the on-site generation. Should a utility outage occur during normal operation of the generator, the utility multifunction relay opens the utility tie-breaker in as few as three cycles, separating the critical load bus seamlessly from the rest of the facility and failed utility. The generator continues to power critical loads after the separation. The controls will monitor for, detect, and verify stable utility voltage and automatically synchronize and reclose the utility tie-breaker, returning to normal grid parallel operation once again in a seamless fashion.
CHP (combined heat and power) systems also offer very attractive options for industrial users. CHP systems generate both electricity and thermal energy in a single, integrated system. Most CHP systems generate electricity by burning natural gas in an engine generator or turbine. Waste heat from the exhaust of the generator is captured and used to provide process hot water and steam or run heating and cooling systems. These systems run continuously in parallel with the utility grid and provide multiple benefits for the host facility -- lower energy costs, reduced emissions, and improved reliability.
Before taking the plunge to install a CLS or CHP system, however, manufacturers need to fully understand a range of economic, application-, and site-specific factors to determine which solution is going to be most appropriate and effective.
IEN: What innovations are in store for industrial users of power equipment, systems, components, software, and services?
Curtis: One interesting and innovative approach that more and more manufacturers are utilizing is to find new sources of fuel for their DG/on-site power systems -- often from byproducts and/or waste products from operations.
For example, at its Port Newark, NJ facility, Aarhus United USA Inc is installing a turnkey on-site power system from Northern Power Systems that will use the highly acidic oil distillate and waste byproduct of the company''s vegetable oil processing operations as fuel.
The new on-site system will be designed to deliver 65% of the facility''s electrical needs and 12% of its thermal consumption. The NJ Clean Energy Program has deemed the fuel a renewable source that is CO2 emissions-free and has therefore committed funds to pay 30% of the project cost.
The oil byproduct will fire an STM Power Stirling-cycle engine generator set to produce electricity, while heat recovered from the system will be used to offset natural gas currently purchased for the tank heaters. The system will be one of the first commercially installed Stirling engine projects and the first to utilize distillate and waste oil as the fuel source.
Because the byproduct has high fuel content, it can be used as a zero-cost fuel source that generates both cost savings and environmental benefits. In fact, Northern estimates that the innovative system design will annually save Aarhus approximately $300,000 and offset 2,942 tons of greenhouse gas emissions, the equivalent of removing almost 500 cars from the road per year. Even though the fuel is highly corrosive, the maintenance cost of this system is expected to be 1/3 less than that of a natural gas-fired reciprocating engine.
Another case in point is a $6.0 million combined heat and power (CHP) system that will provide critical load support for manufacturing operations at SC Johnson''s Waxdale Plant in Racine, WI (shown here). The system is designed, engineered, and built by Northern Power Systems on a turnkey basis. The system will run continuously in parallel with the local utility grid, providing electricity and high-pressure steam to the plant. In the event of a power outage from the grid, the system will isolate the plant''s critical manufacturing operations from the failed grid and continue to supply them with power. With this system, the plant can effectively "ride through" a power outage and avoid lost production.
Major components of the system include a Solar Centaur 40 gas turbine/generator, a heat recovery steam generator, gas compressor system, proprietary microprocessor-based controls, power distribution equipment required for the cogeneration system loads, and a 4,750 sq ft building to house all major equipment. The system''s combustion turbine generators interface with the building electrical services/utility and deliver steam to the plant. Recovery of heat from the generator exhausts will produce about 19,000 lb per hour of high-pressure process steam for the plant.
The turnkey CHP system is the second project Northern has undertaken for SC Johnson at the Waxdale plant. Installed in 2003, the first CHP system also employs a gas turbine/generator and heat recovery/steam generator. The first system runs on methane gas from the nearby Republic Services'' Kestral Hawk Landfill, while the new system will burn primarily natural gas.
Together, the two systems are expected to provide approximately 75% of the annual electrical demand of the Waxdale plant. Because they employ clean-burning energy sources of methane and natural gas, the two turbines deliver a state-of-the-art cogeneration system that supports SC Johnson''s long-running commitment to environmental protection and emission reduction of carbon dioxide, greenhouse gases, and other pollutants.
IEN: How about power supplies? Power quality?
Curtis: Power quality is yet another major concern for manufacturers with highly automated, computer-controlled processes. The programmable logic controllers (PLCs) and distributed control systems (DCSs) that run these processes are very sensitive to fluctuations in power quality such as voltage sags and transients.
A good example is Pokka Beverage, a pasteurized juice bottling company in northern California owned by Coca-Cola. The Pokka plant is located at the end of a radial distribution line and as a result experienced several momentary power fluctuations per month. Even though these fluctuations typically lasted less than one second, they would trip the circuit breakers on the PLCs controlling the bottling lines and cause them to shut down. When the lines shut down during production, the plant would have to throw away the batch in process, rinse the lines, and restart the process, all of which would take up to four hours. When the plant experienced several such shutdowns per month, it had two choices to fix the problem: install a UPS backup power supply or install a CHP system configured to provide Critical Load Support.
As a sort of power insurance policy, a UPS provides continuous power for short time periods when utility-supplied power is interrupted. Because they are very expensive and consume large areas of space, these systems are best deployed to provide seamless support to only the most sensitive of loads for very short periods.
Though these systems are tried and proven, they are not without disadvantages. Most costly are the massive battery banks required to support a large load, and the often-valuable floor space given over to them. Batteries also require constant monitoring and replacement. Failure can often be precipitous and a battery can go from fully serviceable to failed in as little as one week.
Battery banks for a UPS are typically sized to provide 15-45 minutes of continuous operation. In general, every 100 kW of UPS capacity is typically accompanied by roughly 1 ton of batteries. As 90% of utility disruptions are 15 seconds or less, a UPS will provide reliable ride-through of these short-term disturbances until the utility power stabilizes. If a utility disruption lasts longer than 15 seconds, a signal will be sent to the standby diesels, which will start, synchronize, and connect to the load within 20 seconds. In a properly designed system, transfer to the backup gensets will occur seamlessly and well before the UPS batteries are fully drained.
Pokka opted for the CHP-Critical Load Support system approach (shown here). The 1 megawatt system, which delivers approximately 70% of Pokka''s electricity and 30% of its hot water needs, produces basic and standby electricity to run the bottling lines, as well as hot water for the pasteurization processes. The system consists of a natural gas-fired generator and a sophisticated heat recovery process to convert waste heat from electricity generation equipment and exhaust into the hot water. It includes advanced power electronics and controls designed to protect the bottler''s automated production lines from utility blackouts, and other power failures or disruptions.
IEN: What are the R & D hotspots? Which ones are closest to commercialization?
Curtis: In the 1980s, the ability to interconnect multiple computing platforms into wide and local area networks transformed the way the world did business and enabled the rapid growth of the Internet and intranets on which businesses and individuals today rely.
In a similar manner, MicroGrid® power network technology, which combines multiple power generation, storage, and load devices into an intelligent and interactive network will fuel the growth of distributed generation (DG), expanding and enhancing the universal power network -- the utility grid.
As a natural evolution and extension of DG, the MicroGrid power network offers power reliability at levels higher than what is available from the transmission and distribution system. Essentially, a MicroGrid power network is defined as two or more DG assets configured in a network and capable of operating either in parallel with, or independent from, a larger electric grid, while providing continuous power to one or more end users. The assets may be combinations of power generation and energy storage devices, depending on the requirements of a specific application. MicroGrid power networks that employ multiple DG assets provide enhanced power reliability through energy source diversity and inherent redundancy from power electronics.
Configuring DG assets and end user loads into a local power network that can seamlessly transition between grid-connected and isolated operation adds other significant benefits to the deployment of DG systems into the power grid. Most notably, a MicroGrid power network can be islanded from a larger electric grid and continue to meet the power needs of the loads within the power network without interruption.
As a fundamental architecture, the MicroGrid power network concept has wide applications at many levels in the energy market: single commercial and industrial customers, residential development, university or municipal campus, commercial/industrial office parks, and even substation scale systems. In addition, when deployed at a large scale, MicroGrid power networks can reduce transmission and distribution infrastructure costs, yielding major benefits to utilities.
Currently, Northern Power Systems is designing a multiuser MicroGrid power network for installation at its new headquarters facility in the Mad River Industrial Park in Waitsfield, VT. The Mad River MicroGrid power network -- the first of its kind -- will have multiple generation and storage devices at full buildout, and will provide dramatically increased power quality and reliability to businesses and residences within the MicroGrid Power Network service area.
The Mad River Park MicroGrid project will serve as a fully operational demonstration of the capability and benefits of clustering tightly integrated, small-scale generation, storage, and distribution technologies including engines, microturbines, wind turbines, and photovoltaic panels. The system will feature multiple generation and storage devices, and will be connected to five commercial and industrial facilities, and up to 12 residences within the MicroGrid power network service area.
Looking farther out, Northern envisions a distribution system consisting of hierarchies of many MicroGrid systems, configured with multiple levels and interconnections, with most or all of the load demand met by the DG devices sited within the local system. This architecture would create a robust system of utility-owned and user-owned assets, all collectively working together to meet the power needs of the end users, reliably and with low emissions.
IEN: How and where are Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM), web-based monitoring, embedded maintenance, and other solutions being applied in power quality/availability?
Curtis: RCM, remote monitoring, and other solutions are providing new benefits to manufacturers. And these strategies need not be implemented directly by the manufacturer.
One of the emerging offerings, for example, from providers of turnkey DG/on-site power systems is ongoing support for the systems following initial installation. These "aftermarket" operations and maintenance (O & M) programs offer customers a choice of service levels, ranging from full operation and maintenance, to scheduled and unscheduled maintenance, and scheduled maintenance per manufacturers'' requirements. Each extends beyond the normal system commissioning activities that are a regular part of completing an on-site or remote power system project.
O & M programs can cover virtually every critical activity, ranging from daily system adjustments and maintenance to scheduled maintenance of engine generator sets, remote system monitoring, troubleshooting, warranty support, annual operating planning, permitting, and hazardous waste disposal, and more.
Manufacturers realize a host of benefits including better system performance and enhanced monthly system performance reporting via remote monitoring and control software. In some cases, contracting for O & M services will help a manufacturer qualify for state incentive programs by ensuring a system meets efficiency requirements.
IEN: Do distributed generation/onsite power, cogeneration, isolated power, and fuel cell technology continue to expand their role in meeting manufacturers'' power needs? If so, how?
Curtis: The answer is a resounding yes -- more and more manufacturers are recognizing that the energy landscape is becoming increasingly distributed, treating power as a strategic business decision, and employing DG/on-site power, cogeneration, and other options to meet their need for secure, reliable power.
DG offers real solutions and benefits. The systems can run in parallel with the main grid, providing some of the power required by an operation while the grid provides the rest.