A typical 250 000 bpd refinery has hundreds, if not thousands, of unmonitored processes, devices and systems susceptible to unplanned failures or degraded operations. These conditions can waste energy, increase the probability of safety issues and escalate repair costs – and in the worst case shut down processes or an entire refinery.
These problems can be detected early and dealt with proactively by using WirelessHART® transmitters, as Marcio Donnangelo explains in his article, Improving Refinery Margins, in Hydrocarbon Engineering, September 2017.
Installing WirelessHART® pressure and temperature transmitters on heat exchanger banks and feeding their measurements to process data analytics software makes it possible to identify problems with heat exchanger fouling. Similar problems can also be identified on many other types of refinery equipment with the transmitters.
Measurement devices using WirelessHART technology are key enablers to implementing a Pervasive Sensing™ strategy to monitor anything, anywhere in a refinery. Adding low cost installation of wireless monitoring points throughout the plant provides analysis and alerts personnel to problems. And per Marcio, wireless is much easier to install than wired instrumentation.
Previously, additional sensor inputs would have been wired from the sensing point – such as a pump – to a control and monitoring system. Adding this wiring to an existing facility is usually an expensive undertaking, and often requires significant downtime. But wireless transmitters allow points of measurement to be added at a fraction of the cost and time of their wired equivalents.
An Emerson Pervasive Sensing solution can be installed, running and improving operations in any refinery in short order. As Marcio points out, the first steps toward refinery improvement is to define new sensing point locations, determine how the new information will be used, and associate the economic values with each pervasive sensing application. To illustrate, Marcio describes how WirelessHART instrumentation can be used in cooling towers, steam traps, relief valves and pumps. Cooling towers, he says, are a perfect example.
Cooling tower instrumentation in many refineries is often old, with many measuring devices out of service. Measurements are difficult because the process environment is corrosive to wiring, mainly due to chemical vapors. As a result, these areas can be poorly instrumented and controlled. Consequently, monitoring is poor, operations are inefficient, and the towers require a great deal of maintenance and manual operator interaction. WirelessHART monitoring offers better control to improve tower efficiency and minimize water consumption.
A refinery employing wired and wireless transmitters, gateways and analysis software creates an Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) “digital ecosystem” within the entire complex. For example, Emerson’s Plantweb Digital Ecosystem using a Pervasive Sensing portfolio of wired and WirelessHART transmitters to create a digital ecosystem. These devices send reliable real-time data through secure communication to appropriate experts, application software or to remote connected services – turning the data into actionable information, which can be sent to anyone, anywhere. Marcio notes that a refinery can save millions of dollars every year with such a system.
A “digital ecosystem” strategy using WirelessHART sensors to monitor equipment, detect problems, and alert operations personnel can save a refinery millions of dollars every year in maintenance and energy costs. These solutions can also improve safety, prevent releases that could result in fines and penalties, and extend the life of expensive process equipment.
You can find more information like this and meet with other people looking at the same kinds of situations in the Emerson Exchange365 community. It’s a place where you can communicate and exchange information with experts and peers in all sorts of industries around the world. Look for the WirelessHART and IIoT Groups and other specialty areas for suggestions and answers.