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Energy & Efficiency Case Study

Inspiring Software brings in 500k in additional profits to a biogas power plant

We now have an innovative remote-monitoring system that ensures optimum plant performance. This added great value to our projects

Emanuela Gregori, Maintenance Manager

Customer Profile

In this case study our customer is an international group of companies that design, build and manage renewable power plants. The group is a leader in electricity generation from landfill gas, and is also active in power generation from, photovoltaic, wind, mini-hydro and biomass as well as a trader of clean energy and Green Certificates. Through its foreign branches, the group builds plants to reduce green-house gas emissions in the framework of the Kyoto Protocol and trades Carbon Credits on the national and international markets. They have designed and built 37 biogas-to-energy plants in 12 different Italian regions, 25 of which are also currently man-aged directly by the company. This customer is present in a number of foreign countries on 4 conti-nents, where it builds plants for biogas capture and utilization as a source of energy. Currently the com-pany generates an average of around 300,000 MWh per annum which corresponds to the yearly energy needs of 118,000 households.

Customer needs

TIn May 2008 our customer was looking into optimiz-ing a power plant with 6 identical biogas engines. The problem was that the daily biogas amount available didn’t allow to run the engines at their maximum load for the overall time. The engineering team wanted to find out which was the best way to operate the plant in order to get the highest daily profit. In June they started evaluating alternatives and came across Inspiring Software. They approached us with a desire to find out the best daily plan to operate the system in question. Together we concluded that the com-pany had to cover their customers’ needs in terms of electricity and heat and get the highest profit by selling the energy to the market while at the same time respecting the daily biogas extraction limit. That was in fact the main limitation – if the team over-passed the extraction limit, they had to restart the digester which normally took 2 weeks to do.

COGENERATION

Via Enrico Fermi, 5ASalò, BS 25087, ItalyTel. +39 0365 520098www.inspiringsoftware.comintsupport@inspiringsoftware.com

The Inspiring Software solution

The Inspiring Software Cogeneration module is a power plant Optimizer which deals with plant man-agement and predictive diagnostics. It optimizes the production plan, taking into account the maximum amount of biogas available and the minimum production required, while respecting customers’ needs. Usually the engines run at this plant are used with a fixed load and speed. By implementing a true production efficiency pattern, our Optimizer consid-ers the set-up of every machine for 24 hours and generates more than 500,000 operating scenarios. Then out of those scenarios it finds the one that best allows to respect all constraints and maximize prof-its. We connected the Cogeneration software to the SCADA system already existing at the plant which enabled us to acquire all data necessary to run the simulations. We also established an automatic import of parameters managed by an ERP which we needed to forecast and control biogas availability. We also considered maintenance costs and realized that for this plant it was better to control the engines’ speed rather than switching them on/off. Finally, following the changes in the electricity trad-ing prices we made it possible to increase daily profit by running the plant in a way that used gas when it was more convenient and that avoided malfunctioning of the engines.

The customer was very happy with the Cogeneration software. It helped the engineering team identify the optimum plant setup for every single day of operation and it fulfilled all customer requirements by:

Utilizing the maximum capacity of biogas avail-able;Moderating the engines’ speed with regards to the production plan;Choosing the best plant operation scenario;Maximizing profits by selling the produced energy at the highest price;Integrating automated remote monitoring and control of production;And optimizing maintenance activities and costs.

This resulted in an integrated solution for power plant optimization and profit maximization. At the end of

the project Inspiring Software managed to increase plant profits by €465,000 in less than a year. This motivated our customer to apply Cogen-eration to other 7 plants.They started using the system also for maintenance purposes, in particular for predictive diagnostics, reduc-ing their intervention time by 30%. Every new plant they install is now managed with Cogeneration.

Inspiringsoftware

®

Inspiring Software International

Customer Profile

In this case study our customer is an international group of companies that design, build and manage renewable power plants. The group is a leader in electricity generation from landfill gas, and is also active in power generation from, photovoltaic, wind, mini-hydro and biomass as well as a trader of clean energy and Green Certificates. Through its foreign branches, the group builds plants to reduce green-house gas emissions in the framework of the Kyoto Protocol and trades Carbon Credits on the national and international markets. They have designed and built 37 biogas-to-energy plants in 12 different Italian regions, 25 of which are also currently man-aged directly by the company. This customer is present in a number of foreign countries on 4 conti-nents, where it builds plants for biogas capture and utilization as a source of energy. Currently the com-pany generates an average of around 300,000 MWh per annum which corresponds to the yearly energy needs of 118,000 households.

Customer needs

TIn May 2008 our customer was looking into optimiz-ing a power plant with 6 identical biogas engines. The problem was that the daily biogas amount available didn’t allow to run the engines at their maximum load for the overall time. The engineering team wanted to find out which was the best way to operate the plant in order to get the highest daily profit. In June they started evaluating alternatives and came across Inspiring Software. They approached us with a desire to find out the best daily plan to operate the system in question. Together we concluded that the com-pany had to cover their customers’ needs in terms of electricity and heat and get the highest profit by selling the energy to the market while at the same time respecting the daily biogas extraction limit. That was in fact the main limitation – if the team over-passed the extraction limit, they had to restart the digester which normally took 2 weeks to do.

CONTACT

RESULTS• 465,000 € in higher profits;

• 30% reduction in maintenance interven-tion time;

• Integrated tool for remote-monitoring of plant performance;

The Inspiring Software solution

The Inspiring Software Cogeneration module is a power plant Optimizer which deals with plant man-agement and predictive diagnostics. It optimizes the production plan, taking into account the maximum amount of biogas available and the minimum production required, while respecting customers’ needs. Usually the engines run at this plant are used with a fixed load and speed. By implementing a true production efficiency pattern, our Optimizer consid-ers the set-up of every machine for 24 hours and generates more than 500,000 operating scenarios. Then out of those scenarios it finds the one that best allows to respect all constraints and maximize prof-its. We connected the Cogeneration software to the SCADA system already existing at the plant which enabled us to acquire all data necessary to run the simulations. We also established an automatic import of parameters managed by an ERP which we needed to forecast and control biogas availability. We also considered maintenance costs and realized that for this plant it was better to control the engines’ speed rather than switching them on/off. Finally, following the changes in the electricity trad-ing prices we made it possible to increase daily profit by running the plant in a way that used gas when it was more convenient and that avoided malfunctioning of the engines.

The customer was very happy with the Cogeneration software. It helped the engineering team identify the optimum plant setup for every single day of operation and it fulfilled all customer requirements by:

Utilizing the maximum capacity of biogas avail-able;Moderating the engines’ speed with regards to the production plan;Choosing the best plant operation scenario;Maximizing profits by selling the produced energy at the highest price;Integrating automated remote monitoring and control of production;And optimizing maintenance activities and costs.

This resulted in an integrated solution for power plant optimization and profit maximization. At the end of

the project Inspiring Software managed to increase plant profits by €465,000 in less than a year. This motivated our customer to apply Cogen-eration to other 7 plants.They started using the system also for maintenance purposes, in particular for predictive diagnostics, reduc-ing their intervention time by 30%. Every new plant they install is now managed with Cogeneration.

Inspiringsoftware

®

Inspiring Software International

Via Enrico Fermi, 5ASalò, BS 25087, ItalyTel. +39 0365 520098www.inspiringsoftware.comintsupport@inspiringsoftware.com