Power modeling for an industrial installation

Power costs are an increasing component of overall cement production costs. Power costs will continue to climb at an accelerated rate as power plants are required to meet new environmental standards and move towards zero CO2 emissions. These increased costs will be passed on to consumers, possibly making power the most expensive component in cement manufacturing costs. Many plants have difficulty in determining how power is used within the plant and typically only have high level power metering. Power models can be easily built and tuned to give accurate power consumption figures. Power consumption can then be estimated by equipment type, by plant area or shop, by plant MCC, and/or by plant power meter. These models have been in existence for many years and have been used by equipment suppliers to estimate and guarantee cement power consumption for new installations. This paper demonstrates how to build and tune a plant power consumption model. Although the basis for the paper is a full cement plant, the model can be easily used in other industries as well.