by Howard Penrose, Ph.D., CMRP | Jul 18, 2021 | Electrical Reliability, The Sustainable Plant
As usual, you get up early in the morning to go to work, leaving your house about the same time as all your neighbors. As you drive, you begin to notice that you’re catching all green lights on the main thoroughfares, and cross traffic has less time for its...
by Howard Penrose, Ph.D., CMRP | Jul 11, 2021 | Electrical Reliability, The Sustainable Plant
In the vernacular of smart grids, your facility might already be considered a “microgrid.” One of the concepts that became part of the smart-grid framework we discussed in my July 3, 2021, article (see link below) had to do with the definition of...
by Drew Troyer, CRE, CMRP, T.A. Cook/Accenture, Editor | Jul 4, 2021 | Newsletter Column, The Sustainable Plant
I frequently write about the tremendous opportunity we have to reduce costs and our environmental footprint by cutting industrial energy consumption. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) estimates that for most industries, energy consumption and associated greenhouse...
by Howard Penrose, Ph.D., CMRP | Jul 3, 2021 | Electrical Reliability, The Sustainable Plant
Everything seems to be “smart” these days. Phones, cars, refrigerators, you name it. What on Earth, though is a “smart grid?” We really didn’t begin referring to the power grid as “smart” until around 1994, when I was serving as the...
by Howard Penrose, Ph.D., CMRP | Jun 27, 2021 | Electrical Reliability, The Sustainable Plant
We are moving into an evolving age of “green energy” and “a green economy.” In the process, we’re facing issues on how to integrate legacy systems with new technologies and how to protect them from each other. As noted in several...
by Howard Penrose, Ph.D., CMRP | Jun 20, 2021 | Electrical Reliability, The Sustainable Plant
I received a number of comments regarding Part 9 (June 11, 2021, see link below) of my series on reliability and maintenance opportunities. Several of of those messages compared the longer life of nuclear or coal-fired power plants to what might be construed as the...
by Drew Troyer, CRE, CMRP, T.A. Cook/Accenture, Editor | Jun 6, 2021 | Newsletter Column, The Sustainable Plant
The past few weeks have been a pressure cooker for large oil and gas companies. The message delivered by shareholders was clear: “Get serious about your environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance [particularly regarding climate impacts].” Consider...
by Howard Penrose, Ph.D., CMRP | May 15, 2021 | Plant Operations, The Sustainable Plant
According to the U.S. Department of Energy, over 4,760 trillion Btu of steam energy represents 40% of the total energy used in industrial process applications. The efficiency of steam production by fuel ranges from 85.7% efficiency (natural gas) to 90.3% (coal) with...
by Howard Penrose, Ph.D., CMRP | May 7, 2021 | Plant Operations, The Sustainable Plant
When it comes to a production operation, energy, process, reliability, and waste stream aren’t stand-alone elements. And they really don’t differ much from one another. In fact, the results associated with improving or ignoring each of these areas are...
by Howard Penrose, Ph.D., CMRP | Apr 22, 2021 | Electrical Reliability, The Sustainable Plant
When determining the approach for assessing a facility, there are several decisions to make, including selection of independent software tools and guides. The U.S. Department.of Energy (USDOE, energy.gov) has developed a number of taxpayer-supported tools that review...
