Energy A CEP Preprint

© 2012 AIChE

Easy Ways to Improve

Energy Efficiency
Alan P. Rossiter Managing the energy consumption of a process
Rossiter & Associates
does not need to be complicated. Here are some
Veerasamy Venkatesan examples of less-complicated strategies.
VGA Engineering Consultants

T
he chemical process industries (CPI) have made Unnecessary cooling of process streams
great strides toward energy efficiency. New, high- A common inefficiency in a chemical plant or refinery
yield catalysts, equipment advances, improvements is the cooling of process streams that should not be cooled.
to process design procedures, process control and real-time A petrochemical facility installed an air cooler on the
optimization, energy-focused maintenance programs, and feed line of a distillation column (Figure 1) to prevent the
changes in corporate policies have contributed to this prog- condenser from being overloaded during certain abnor-
ress. In addition to these sophisticated strategies, simple, mal operating conditions (1). Although the air cooler was
often-overlooked changes and activities can yield dramatic designed for use only during abnormal conditions, it ran
gains in energy efficiency. continuously during normal operations. Removing heat
This article presents several effective — and relatively from the feed during normal conditions required the reboiler
easy — changes that operators and process engineers can to work harder, thereby increasing the boiler’s heat load.
implement to minimize energy consumption, and provides Changing operating procedures to reflect the original
guidance on how to avoid some of the common pitfalls. intent of the air cooler — shutting off the air cooler fan dur-

Before Mofications After Modifications

Condenser Condenser

Top Top
Air Cooler Product Air Cooler Product
Feed Feed

Reboiler Reboiler

Bottom Bottom
Product Product

p Figure 1. A distillation column was designed with an air cooler on the feed line. Although the cooler was designed for use only during abnormal conditions, it
was run continuously, resulting in an increased reboiler heat load. Shutting off the air cooler during normal operations did not completely solve the problem, as a
significant amount of heat was wasted due to convection in the cooler. A simple fix: Install a bypass line around the air cooler (green).

16  www.aiche.org/cep  December 2012  CEP

ing normal operations — reduced the reboiler duty by more example. However, throttle control — i.e., the addition of
than 30% and saved the plant more than $1 million/yr, at no a throttle valve in the line feeding the user of the pumped
cost to the facility. fluid — offers a simple alternative (Figure 2, green).
Turning the air cooler off during normal operations was When a throttle valve is used for flow control with a
a good first step. However, a significant amount of heat fixed-speed pump, the flow through the pump is equal to the
was still being wasted due to convection in the air cooler. amount of feed required by the process user. This is signifi-
This loss was eliminated by installing a bypass around the cantly lower than the pump flowrate with spillback control.
air cooler (Figure 1, green) — a small project that saved an Throttling also introduces a backpressure on the pump,
additional $200,000/yr. and this, together with the reduced flowrate, moves the
This example illustrates the importance of understand- operating point on the pump curve up and to the left, which
ing the purpose of all the equipment in a process. Operators corresponds to a reduced power requirement (Figure 3). It is
often place equipment in service inappropriately, and once important to keep the spillback valve in the system because
these inappropriate operating norms have been established, of its ability to prevent the pump from being shut-in; the
they sometimes stay in place for years. Good operating spillback valve opens if the process feed requirement falls
procedures combined with training, including frequent below a predetermined minimum allowable flowrate.
refresher courses or continuing education, can go a long Installing throttle control in this system reduced the
way toward minimizing this type of equipment misuse. pump power by about 10%, which resulted in savings of
about $150,000/yr. The only expenditures required were
Pump power for the throttle valve and associated equipment, and repro-
In a plastics facility (2), a large high-pressure feed gramming of the control system.
pump with a fixed-speed electric drive was operated with This example highlights a common tendency of engi-
spillback control (Figure 2). In this arrangement, the pump neers and operators to accept the design of their control
operated at constant flow and delivery pressure, and adjust- systems as long as the equipment functions reliably and
ments to the opening of the spillback valve accommodated safely. Safety and reliability are, of course, top priorities.
changes in the process demand. A cooler was incorporated However, many control systems are designed without
in the spillback line to avoid overheating. regard to the energy losses they create. It is well worth
Although the spillback control system provided opera- reassessing these systems and questioning the losses.
tional stability and protected the pump from shut-in (a
condition that could cause damage to the equipment), it did Maintenance tracking and communication
so at the expense of significant energy inefficiency. During While working in a refinery, one of the authors (Rossiter)
normal operation, the pump ran at high throughput and noticed that a heat exchanger was out of service — which
relatively low head, with a large recycle flow, and thus high was not unusual, as heat exchangers often require mainte-
power requirements (Figure 3). nance. However, the records showed that this particular heat
Many options are available to reduce pump power exchanger had been idle for more than three months after
requirements. These include the use of variable-speed
drives or high-efficiency pumps and motors, trimming or
replacing impellers, and adding a smaller pump for use
during periods of low throughput. For various reasons,
these options were not viable for the plastics facility in this

Pump
Head

Power

Feed

FIC

Throttle Valve
CW Supply

Spillback Valve
CW Return
Flowrate
p Figure 2. A high-pressure feed pump in a plastics facility was operated Operating with Throttle Operating without Throttle
with spillback control. This arrangement provides for operational stability, but
at the expense of energy inefficiency. A throttle valve was added (green) to the
high-pressure feed pump system to allow the pump to operate during normal p Figure 3. The pump curve for the pump shown in Figure 2 compares the
conditions at a lower flowrate and thus lower power requirement. operating point with and without throttle control.

CEP  December 2012  www.aiche.org/cep  17

Energy

being taken out of service for cleaning. The work had been Preheating deaerator feedwater. Steam systems used
completed within a few weeks, at which point the mainte- for process heating in oil refineries and chemical plants
nance supervisor notified the shift supervisor that the heat commonly employ thermal deaerators to drive off oxygen
exchanger was ready for use. But plant personnel were occu- and other dissolved gases from boiler feedwater. In prin-
pied with other activities, so the heat exchanger could not be ciple, only a small amount of steam is needed to do this.
put back into service at that time. The shift supervisor failed However, the temperature of the incoming water is often
to pass the information on to the next shift, and no follow-up much lower than the saturation temperature in the deaera-
action was taken until the idle equipment was pointed out. tor, so a substantial amount of additional steam is used to
Once the unit manager was informed of the situation, preheat the water. Preheating the feedwater to a deaerator
the heat exchanger was placed back in service within can consume 10%, or even 15%, of the total steam gener-
hours. The energy loss incurred during the 2.5 months ated on a site. For this reason, strategies are often devel-
that the heat exchanger had been left idle was worth over oped to preheat deaerator feedwater with recovered waste
$100,000 (1). process heat.
Management of heat-exchanger cleaning programs has In this example, the deaerator in a chemical plant
become increasingly sophisticated, with both improved processed a combination of warm returned condensate and
cleaning techniques and better tools for assessing appropri- softened makeup water that is available only at ambi-
ate cleaning intervals for the heat exchangers in the circuit. ent temperature. Within the boiler house there were also
However, the best cleaning methods and the most elegant several water-cooled air compressors (Figure 4), one of
optimization of cleaning intervals are of little use when which was experiencing chronic maintenance problems in
communication fails. its cooling tower.
In this example, better systems were needed for During a project to replace this cooling tower, one of the
tracking the status of maintenance jobs on the unit. A authors (Venkatesan) noticed that the average quantity of
simple electronic reminder system, for example, could softened makeup water (at ambient temperature) going to the
have alerted the operators of the need to bring the heat deaerator (115–150 gpm) was almost identical to the amount
exchanger back online. of cooling water needed for the air compressor (120 gpm).
Based on this observation, a new project was proposed to
Optimizing steam systems route the makeup water through the air compressor and
Steam systems — including boilers, steam distribution isolate the cooling tower with blinds (Figure 5). The new
lines, and power generation with steam turbines — present proposal was evaluated and accepted, and the piping modifi-
significant opportunities for improving energy efficiency. cations were completed within two months.
The final two examples illustrate this point. Heat from the air compressor is now recovered by
preheating the softened water,
Compressed Air to Process saving $80,000/yr in deaerator
steam usage. Implementa-
Air Inlet
Air Compressor tion was very inexpensive, as
Deaerator it required only local pip-
Second
ing changes. In addition, the
Returned Third Stage
Stage
First Stage project eliminated the need to
Condensate
maintain or replace the cool-
Cooler Cooler Cooler Cooler ing tower, thus significantly
60–65°F reducing costs.
115–150 gpm
This example illustrates the
benefits of preheating deaerator
feedwater. Perhaps even more
Cooling
Tower
importantly, it shows how
a single project can achieve
Softened Makeup multiple objectives — in this
Water for Deaerator case, save energy and elimi-
nate a chronic maintenance
p Figure 4. A deaerator in a chemical plant processes a combination of warm returned condensate and softened
problem. It also illustrates
makeup water at ambient temperature. Extra steam is consumed in this configuration to heat the softened makeup
water. Coincidentally, the average quantity of softened makeup water going to the deaerator was almost identical to the importance of looking
the amount of cooling water needed for one of the air compressors within the boiler house. for creative ways to redeploy

18  www.aiche.org/cep  December 2012  CEP

 Compressed Air to Process

Air Inlet

Air Compressor
Deaerator

Third Stage Second

First Stage
Returned Stage
Condensate
Preheated Makeup Water
85–90°F
Cooler Cooler Cooler Cooler
115–150 gpm

Softened Makeup
Water for Deaerator
60–65°F Cooling
115–150 gpm Tower

p Figure 5. To eliminate some of the extra steam required to heat the softened makeup water for the deaerator shown in Figure 4, the makeup water was
rerouted (green) through the air compressor, which heats the water from 60–65°F to 85–90°F.

existing equipment in situ to save energy. Of course, it is turbine, was used to let down high-pressure (HP), 930-psig
always essential to check equipment limitations and follow steam to medium-pressure (MP), 290-psig steam. The second
appropriate management-of-change procedures when mak- turbine, an extraction-condensing turbine, received MP steam,
ing process modifications. In addition, when implementing which was extracted as low-pressure (LP), 73-psig steam (in
steam-saving projects, one should consider the overall fuel the extraction section) for process use, and the remaining MP
and steam balances of the plant, and not focus purely on steam was expanded into a vacuum condenser (Figure 6).
improving the efficiency of individual equipment (3). In the original design, only the exhaust steam from the
Adding excessive safety margins to steam consumption. backpressure turbine was used to supply MP steam to the
In a commodity chemical plant in Europe, two steam turbines extraction-condensing turbine. Because the temperature of
drove a large air compressor and an electric generator in a the outlet steam from the backpressure turbine was higher
single-shaft arrangement. The first turbine, a backpressure than 660°F (the maximum allowable steam inlet tempera-
Steam
930 psig
932°F

Extraction-
Generator Condensing Process Gas Backpressure
Turbine Compressor Turbine

Boiler Feedwater 290 psig

574°F 698°F
Cold Water 63°F

600°F
Vacuum
Condenser
290 psig
550°F Desuperheater
Steam from
Cold Water 81°F Waste-Heat Boiler
73 psig
To Users

p Figure 6. At a commodity chemicals plant in Europe, two steam turbines (a backpressure turbine and an extraction-condensing turbine) drove a large air
compressor and an electric generator. A desuperheater reduced the temperature of the MP backpressure steam before it entered the extraction-condensing
turbine together with steam from a waste-heat boiler.

CEP  December 2012  www.aiche.org/cep  19

Energy

Steam
930 psig
932°F

Extraction-
Process Gas Backpressure
Generator Condensing
Compressor Turbine
Turbine

622°F Boiler Feedwater 290 psig

698°F
Cold Water 63°F
698°F
Vacuum
Condenser
290 psig
Desuperheater
550°F Steam from
Cold Water 81°F Waste-Heat Boiler
73 psig
To Users

p Figure 7. A study showed that the desuperheater in Figure 6 was unnecessary. A bypass line (green) was installed around the desuperheater and the
desuperheating water was shut off, increasing power production by 500 kW.

ture specified for the extraction-condensing turbine), before The original design was later modified to add steam
entering the turbine, the MP steam went through a desuper­ from a waste-heat boiler to the steam from the backpressure
heater to reduce its temperature. The desuperheater was turbine outlet, which increased the steam flow to the extrac-
designed to produce MP steam at 600°F — providing for a tion-condensing turbine and thus raised its power output.
60°F safety margin. (Note that the amount of work extracted The temperature of the steam from the waste-heat boiler was
from a steam turbine decreases as the inlet temperature goes 550°F — significantly cooler than the exhaust steam from the
down, so adding the desuperheater reduced the amount of backpressure turbine. When the designers made this modifi-
work generated by the extraction-condensing turbine.) cation, they did not re-evaluate the use of the desuperheater.
A subsequent study of this system by one of the authors
(Venkatesan) found that the maximum temperature that can
Literature Cited be reached with the combined steam flow to the extraction-
1. Rossiter, A. P., “Back to the Basics,” Hydrocarbon Engineering, condensing turbine is below 660°F, and desuperheating of the
12 (9), pp. 69–73 (Sept. 2007).
backpressure turbine exhaust steam can be safely eliminated.
2. Rossiter, A. P., “Simple Opportunities for Improving Energy
Efficiency,” AIChE Spring Meeting and 8th Global Congress on Based on this finding, a bypass line was installed around the
Process Safety, Houston, TX, Paper No. 119a (April 4, 2012). desuperheater, and the water supply to the desuperheater was
3. Tanthapanichakoon, W., “Saving Energy in Multilevel Steam shut off (Figure 7, green). This change increased the amount
Systems,” Chem. Eng. Progress, 108 (1), pp. 27–32 (Jan. 2012). of electricity generated by the turbine by 500 kW, resulting in
an annual energy cost saving of $400,000.
This example illustrates the need to challenge existing
Alan P. Rossiter, P.E., PhD, is president of Rossiter & Associates, a
consulting company based in Bellaire, TX (Email: [email protected];
operating practices, and also to re-evaluate conditions when
Website: www.rossiters.org/associates) that provides consulting ser- process changes are made. While it is always essential to
vices on energy efficiency for the oil refining and chemical industries.
He received his BA, MEng, and PhD, all in chemical engineering, from
operate within design limits, excessively large margins of
the Univ. of Cambridge, and he has more than 30 years of experience safety can result in unnecessary losses of energy efficiency.
in process engineering and management. He is a chartered engineer in
the U.K., and a registered professional engineer in the state of Texas.
He is a past chair of the South Texas Section of AIChE. Final thoughts
Ven Venkatesan, an energy expert, heads the consulting firm VGA No matter how sophisticated our energy management
Engineering Consultants (Email: [email protected]; Phone: (407) strategies become, it is imperative that we continue to pay
399-9316). With over 33 years of experience in the energy management
field, he has conducted energy audits for more than 120 energy- attention to basic principles. We must understand the pur-
intensive process facilities around the world, and he has been involved pose and limitations of the equipment in our processes. And
in the U.S. Dept. of Energy’s Save Energy Now program as a steam and
process heating systems specialist. He also conducts international when changes are made to our facilities, we must consider
training programs for engineers through the United Nations Industrial their impact on all processes. Key principles of human inter-
Organization (UNIDO). He received his BS and MS, both in chemical
engineering, from the Univ. of Madras, India. actions — especially communication — are also essential to
all of our activities. CEP

20  www.aiche.org/cep  December 2012  CEP