Optimal Operation System for Energy Plants

Against a backdrop of healthy domestic and foreign demand, the steel industry is continuing its fundamental trend of increasing production for the manufacturing industry. Meanwhile, since the steel industry accounts for approximately 11% of final energy consumption in Japan, efforts to improve the efficiency of energy usage have been pursued actively for a long time. Since the first oil crisis, an energy savings of approximately 20% has been realized, and efforts to conserve energy have intensified with the recent recognition of the importance of preventing climate change on a global scale. Reducing the consumption of energy in manufacturing processes is a part of these efforts, and it is a goal to reduce energy consumption in fiscal 2010 to a level that is 10% lower than the energy consumption in fiscal 1990. Fuji Electric was early to recognize the usefulness of energy management in steelworks, and continues to deliver “energy centers” which have become synonymous with energy management systems. The energy supply and demand configurations for steelworks are various, and have mutually complex relationships. A process computer-based real-time energy supply and demand forecast function and an optimal distribution function are essential parts of an energy center in order to supply energy stably and respond rapidly to the moment-by-moment changes in the energy supply and demand balance. Based on these circumstances, this paper describes the application of Fuji Electric’s FeTOP optimal energy operation system package to an energy plan in a steelworks (in cooperation with the JFE Steel Corporation) and the results of optimal operation that have been verified through simulations.