The misconception of taking the “If its not broke don’t fix it.” approach to any process is that you are doing OK and that is good enough.
Good enough seldom is.
If you are not improving chances are you are degrading.
Nothing remains static.
No matter how consistent you would like to think your operation is if you are not working at improving you are allowing decay to creep in.
Who is going to notice that the Tons of fuel per MWh went from 1.2 to 1.28 for the day? the week? the month?
We have all heard the saying ” the solution to pollution is dilution” so your emissions are high… just add a little over fire air to dilute it down. Its all good. Oh… there goes that fuel increase again… oh and we had to add a little more urea into the stack than normal… must have been a batch of poor fuel or something.
Minutes become hours, Hours become shifts and shifts become months. The slide may be slow but the destination is the same. Poor Performance and increased costs.
The unfortunate part of this is that the operator is trapped. There are so many targets to hit and often they are conflicting. Not just in the time requirements but in the actual impacts upon each other. Water treatment, fuel handling and receiving, ash bin levels, maintenance issues and scheduling plus a myriad of other alarms bells and whistles that go off on a standard shift.
The operation of a biomass facility is a complex issue more so than many realize.
Many take an approach that was once described to me as “Storming the Castle” we will put all of our resources on this one area and that will fix all of our problems. Oh, that didn’t quite do what we expected… OK so we will just charge this one and then it will all be good… over and over. Some progress may be made but typically as one aspect of the process is attended to in isolation something else deteriorates. People get frustrated from money spent and no results achieved and or feeling that their efforts are in vain.
What we have often seen is that this approach is often attacking symptoms and not the actual root cause of the issue.
In its simplest form we are here to to help our clients realize their goals. Our clients are Biomass Power and Biorefinery companies looking to run as effectively as they can.
Together WE make Biomass Work.
Continuous improvement is a holistic approach to the challenge of more efficient and effective operations.
The determination of where the current operations is running and how effective it Currently is on a day in and day out basis.
The identification of all areas that can be improved and what their impact will be on the overall operation. This is an interesting process and sometimes brings some surprising details into the forefront.
An example would be a facility experiencing fuel handling issues when operating at high loads. On the initial review it would appear the modifying the fuel handling would be the most logical place to start to achieve greater production. What if instead you were able to reduce the fuel consumption and achieve full load consistently at a fuel rate that does not cause issues? What if the fuel quality was the issue and by monitoring the quality of fuel you avoided the issue?
We worked with a client that was experiencing a struggle to sustain output at their generating station. The initial thought was the boiler was not performing when in fact it was their Turbine that was past due for an overhaul. The boiler was required to put out 30,000 more lbs per hour of steam to produce the same MW output.
A review of the complete facility and all issues then a goal can be set for the Desired Level of Operation.
Once the plan is in place and the priorities determined then the implementation and the change management can commence.
Each step should see improvement without putting stress on any other component including the operator.
Contact us to discuss this process and how we can assist you along your path.