Sulzer has launched the Sulzer Energy Optimisation Service, an energy efficiency and carbon reduction service that the company says will create a new best practice standard for centrifugal pumps in energy-intensive industries such as power generation, oil and gas, chemicals, and water desalination.
The Sulzer Energy Optimization Service solution combines digital analysis, machine learning, and ongoing monitoring to reduce carbon emissions, enhance reliability, and reduce energy costs. Sulzer says a 1 per cent increase in global pump efficiency would save around 59TWh of electricity—equivalent to New Zealand’s annual power needs. Some pumps’ efficiency could be increased by as much as 20 to 30 per cent.
Ravin Pillay-Ramsamy, Services Division president at Sulzer, said: “Inefficient and unreliable pumps cost operators in the industrial sectors millions of dollars in unnecessary downtime, energy costs and carbon emissions every year. Sulzer Energy Optimization Service offers a comprehensive solution tackling this inefficiency – from identification to improvement and monitoring.”
“A pilot customer in Spain will now save €1 million in energy costs and over 2,300 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year due to energy optimization improvements identified by the Service,” added Pillay-Ramsamy. “By rerating five pumps, energy efficiency increased from 72 to 83 per cent saving the operator 5,000MWh in electricity every year.”
An initial pump energy audit consists of four steps. It identifies areas of inefficiency and, using Sulzer’s proprietary calculator, PumpWise, outlines the potential energy, carbon, and monetary savings.
A tailored proposal is generated by Sulzer’s expert team presenting a range of options to return the pump to run at its best efficiency point through an engineered retrofit, with varying techniques such as hydraulic rerates, specialized coatings, wear clearances and more. Each option weighs operational costs, investment, downtime, payback and efficiency guarantees. The upgrades are then implemented with support from Sulzer’s established retrofit team, which has delivered more than 4,000 retrofit projects globally since its setup in 2010. The team is supported by a network of more than 120 service locations globally.
Post-retrofit, Sulzer offers a performance agreement to maintain optimized reliability and efficiency. This includes access to Blue Box, Sulzer’s proprietary machine learning technology that turns pump performance data into actionable insights.
Ravin added: “For operators constantly challenged to do more with less, making energy efficiency improvements is a win-win. With pumps accounting for 20 per cent of the world’s electricity demand, we want to offer a streamlined, futureproofed way for customers to improve their energy efficiency regardless of their pump OEM. To do so, we’ve combined the competence of our people and longstanding engineering expertise with our proprietary innovations and wrapped them in a collaborative and customer-centric approach. Altogether, this solution creates a new best practice standard for pump operation that supports operators in remaining future-ready.”
