Energy Savings from Smart Operation of Electrical, Process and Mechanical Equipment

The drive across the world towards energy efficiency and reduction of CO2 emissions is leading to new industrial processes and new ways of operating existing installations. In particular, the control and operation of processes, rotating machinery and elec trical equipment is becoming radically more integrated giving new opportunities for energy saving through equipment management, automation, and optimization. The Energy-Smartops project is divided into eighteen research tasks that will be carried out at the different institutions from the consortium. The consortium involves universities and R&D groups of end-user companies in addition to ABB. ABB Norway will contribute by providing research facilities and expertise in the fields of user-centered design a nd process visualization. David Romero has been employed as an Early Stage Researcher (ESR) under the joint research program on a sub-project to focus on visualization of plant dependencies. In his research task, he will use an user-centered design (UCD ) approach to ensure that the final software solution is developed towards the real needs. To achieve this, end-users will be involved at every stage of the design process, from concept development to user testing. Statoil is an associated partner in the project and information about end-users will be collected by using qualitative research methods and site-visits at Statoil facilities. The proposed solution will consist of a software prototype for a new interactive visualization concept applied and test ed on selected use-cases. The solution will make use of algorithms for extracting connectivity information from process schematics and process databases that have been previously developed by partners in the project.