Canfor Implements DeltaV Advanced Control on Lime Kiln.
Canadian Forest Products Ltd. has successfully implemented DeltaV Predict advanced control at their Northwood Pulp Mill in Prince George, British Columbia. The upgraded controls were installed to improve control and lower operating costs by reducing fuel consumption and variability on one of two lime kiln process units.
"Since the installation of DeltaV Predict our process variability on the lime kiln has been reduced by as much as 90% on key process parameters," said Dave Sordi, process control engineer at Canfor. "We've been running the model predictive control application on our kiln full time since the control was commissioned. We are seeing smoother operations even while burning multiple fuels. Initial results show decreases in specific energy usage on the order of 6 to 15 percent resulting in project pay out of significantly less than one year." Canfor was able to take advantage of DeltaV Predicts ability to automatically identify the process model, minimizing process testing and commissioning costs typical for this type of project. Kiln operations like those at Canfor are subject to interaction amongst control loops, which can be the cause of less than optimal operating conditions. Model predictive control products like DeltaV Predict are designed to easily address those process interactions and compensate for them.
"We designed DeltaV Predict from the outset to be easy to use and implement," said Darrin Kuchle, product manager for DeltaV advanced control products. "The main reason advanced control applications aren't used more often is the large investment of time and money normally required to commission and maintain them. DeltaV Predict addresses those concerns directly." DeltaV Predict is available for control problems with as few as one manipulated variable and can handle processes with up to 8 inputs, and 8 outputs. Since the MPC algorithms executes directly in the process controller, it can execute as fast as once per second allowing it to be used where other MPC applications can't. Additionally, since the DeltaV process controllers can be deployed in a fully redundant manner, the MPC can be redundant as well greatly improving availability. As part of the PlantWeb architecture, the DeltaV digital automation system makes advanced control easy.
See the Video Case Study for more information about this project.
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