A site-wide steam modeling and optimization program (Visual Mesa) was implemented at the Bayou Cogen plant in Bayport, Texas in 1997 and has been in use continuously since that time. This program optimizes steam production among four cogen units and three boilers, compressor turbine extraction/condensing, spared pump (turbine/motor) operation, as well as the monitoring of the entire steam system. The program is also facilitates the costing of gaseous and liquid products through the use of offline case studies which can be used to optimize production of these products on our industrial gas pipelines. The program is used for both day-to-day site optimization, outage forecasting, and long-term site planning. In this presentation, we will discuss who the main users of the program are and how they and the plant derive benefits from its use. The primary users are the Bayou shift operators, Bayou shift supervisor, the OCC duty control engineer and the OCC product supply manager. The Bayou shift operator is given optimal production targets to achieve from Visual MESA Online writing to the plants SCADA system. The OCC duty control engineer monitors Bayou’s operations and the online Visual MESA model and also runs offline models to analyze potential equipment configuration changes to further optimize the system.
Harper, C.; Nelson, D. A. (2008). Finding Benefits by Modeling and Optimizing Steam and Power Systems. Energy Systems Laboratory (http://esl.tamu.edu); Texas A&M University (http://www.tamu.edu). Available electronically from http : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /88009.