Energy management software reduces flaring by up to 50%

Magazine4 Min

The steel industry is one of the biggest and most energy-intensive sectors, responsible for
around 8% of CO₂ emissions worldwide.

Integrated steel plants often deal with gas dispatch problems, resulting in excessive flaring, increased carbon emissions, and high costs. Viridis Dispatch simulates and optimizes plant-wide energy flows based on predictive models. This way the solution prevents energy waste, saves resources, enables predictive production, increases electricity generation, and reduces flaring by up to 50%.

Steel industries worldwide pursue the goal of saving energy and CO₂ emissions. Gas dispatch at integrated sites is a particularly common area of concern and leaves much room for improvement. Intermittent gas sources, such as blast oxygen furnaces (BOF), are especially subject to inefficiencies and often results in excessive flaring, increased CO₂ emissions and high costs. Taking a global perspective here prevents isolated decisions – these and a lack of predictability are usually the causes of energy waste, increased costs and emissions.

As part of the Viridis Energy & Sustainability Suite, Viridis Dispatch is able to predict gas flows by utilizing digitalization and artificial intelligence. Gas flow models allow simulations and optimizations of process parameters as well as event timing, reducing flaring by approximately 50% and increasing electricity generation only with small process adjustments. Viridis Dispatch can be implemented by making process adjustments and operational optimizations and therefore does not require direct intervention in the plant. Due to the fact that process adjustments and production synchronization are done in a non-intrusive way, productivity is increased, and operational risks are significantly reduced. In addition, production downtime can be prevented by no equipment changes.

What’s more, Viridis Dispatch helps reduce operating costs (OPEX) by constantly monitoring a plant's processes and automatically suggesting the required setpoints to simulate different energy scenarios. Efficient distribution of gases and steam in integrated steel mills can solve problems such as lack of predictability, intermittent availability of gases, large volumes and technical constraints, among others. Machine learning, simulation and optimization algorithms can be used to simulate operational scenarios to determine what immediate actions need to be taken.

Major steel manufacturers have already been attracted to the benefits of Viridis Dispatch. Several SMS clients are implementing the application as part of their overall goal to optimize gas and steam flows throughout the plant complex to create more efficient production processes and reduce the company's carbon footprint and operational risks. The energy application helps optimize gas flows throughout the plant, make better use of byproduct gases and reduce gas flaring. Furthermore, it lowers natural gas consumption and CO₂ emissions by providing real-time AI energy tracking across many consumption points throughout the plant.

Making steel production processes predictable by utilizing machine learning opens up a wide range of possibilities for companies. Especially in times of global energy crises, it becomes all the more clear that technical and digital know-how make an important contribution to reducing global emissions.