ENERGY-SMARTOPS · 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 processes. In particular, the control and operation of processes, rotating machinery and electrical equipment is becoming radically more integrated giving new opportunities for energy saving through equipment management, automation, and optimization.In the light of these challenges, there is a need for new training and research action to address technology gaps at the interfaces between the process, mechanical and electrical domains, and to realize energy savings from integrated operation. The ENERGY-SMARTOPS consortium has detailed plans for cross-disciplinary training of a cohort of Early Stage engineering researchers through personalized programmes which will provide experience of research as an exciting and rewarding career, in-depth training in research projects at the host site and on intersectorial secondments, local and network-wide courses on technical topics, complementary skills training, and participation in workshops and symposia.The research programme is organized into three themes: (i) Equipment and process monitoring integrating multiple measurements from the process, mechanical and electrical sub-systems, (ii) Integrated automation capturing information from all three subsystems, and devising new algorithms that explicitly manage the interfaces and interactions between them, (iii) Optimization to provide energy savings by better integration of operations across the process-mechanical-electrical interfaces.The consortium involves universities and the R and D groups of end-user companies and an industrial technology supplier. Its investigators are experts in electrical machinery and power electronics, compressors and pumps, modeling and optimization, instrumentation, signal analysis, equipment condition monitoring, and automation of oil and gas, steel and chemical processes.