To Shed or Not to Shed?

Take the guesswork out of load shedding

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Load Shedding in Action

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Instantaneous Load Shedding

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Instantaneous Load Shedding

Intelligent Load Shedding - ILS™

Fast, Proactive, Reliable, Optimized

Load Shedding is a critical strategy to avoid electric power system outage due to a disturbance. This strategy must consider an integrated approach for process and power, both dynamical and at high-speeds. 

Utilizing a model-driven electrical digital twin foundation with embedded predictive analytics, optimization algorithms, operator training simulator, and load shedding action validation, ETAP's adaptive Intelligent Load Shedding solution makes Faster than Real-Time decisions.

Solutions

Solutions

Challenge

Challenges

Sucess

Success

Key Features

Benefits

Intelligent Load Shedding means the monitoring and making decisions based on the state of the system model, value of the operation, criticality of the processes running, and environmental impact.

Solutions

Solution that Delivers Instant & Lasting Values

ETAP ILS predicts the optimal load shedding scenario based on actual system dynamics, making it the most intelligent solution available, hands down.

  • Eliminate unnecessary load shedding
  • Reduction of downtime for critical loads
  • Reduction of spinning reserve requirements
  • Reliable load preservation system
  • Fast response to disturbances
  • Seamless integration with SCADA system
  • Scalable, interoperable & redundant platform
  • Accurate validation of shedding schemes

Explore Solutions

Challenge

Challenges & Concerns

Ensuring Reliable Power & Service Continuity

  • Are the critical processes and sub-systems in danger of a disorderly shutdown left to run?
  • Will the designed load shedding scheme operate properly when triggered?

Resiliency – Capacity to Recover Quickly & Restore Effectively

  • Can the system be restored quickly and properly and how?
  • How is limited power diverted and distributed around the system?

Protection Against Production Losses

  • How much load and what combination of loads needs to be shed in order to maintain system stability?
  • Are the revenue-generating processes and priority loads preserved during the outage? 

Lower Cost of Operation

  • Does the system have adequate spinning reserves? 
  • Are the predetermined spinning reserve policies too costly?
  • How to reduce the cost of spinning reserve equipment and fuel?

Workforce Safety & Environmental Impact

  • How to safeguard the most valuable resources?
  • How to guarantee preservation of power to mission-critical processes and areas?
Benefits

Powering Success for the Industry

For more than 30 years, ETAP Intelligent Load Shedding solution has ensured safe and reliable operation across a range of industries from Oil & Gas to Hospitals, and Manufacturing. Learn how ETAP ILS delivers value and savings from modeling to operation.


Featured Success Stories

Case Study - Mining
$5 Million +
Ongoing Savings on Diesel Fuel & Cost per Year
$2.5 Million
On Reduction of Lost Production per Year

Realized Savings & Cost Avoidance

Amman Mineral, operator of one of Indonesia’s largest copper-gold mines, significantly reduced production losses caused by a variety of environmental disturbances by implementing ETAP Intelligent Load Shedding solution.

To date, the facility has a total cost-avoidance savings of more than $72 Million from not running diesel generators through optimization and reduction of spinning reserves requirements.

We recommend ETAP solution for Mining and Power Generation industries for real-time monitoring and intelligent load shedding. Since the implementation of ETAP Load Shedding System at our mining side, cost-avoidance of downtime has added to approximately about $5 Million. More importantly, by not running diesel generators, we have a total cost-avoidance of $72 Million.

Amman Mineral

Optimize load preservation

The critical loads in a mining company include the mills involved in unearthing process as well as the motors that cool them. Sag mills as large as 12,000 HP  are the backbone of the entire process. Due to disturbances at the supply, if these machines are shed, it typically takes 24 hours to bring them back in operation. ETAP ILS monitors the entire system collectively and knows the status of every individual load and the amount of loading. ETAP ILS uses this knowledge to reprioritize the load shedding list dynamically such that all critical loads in the mining company are being preserved under foreseen or unforeseen circumstances with an estimated saving of at least $500,000 per day.

Reduction of spinning reserve requirements

By providing a faster and intelligent control of the loads being shed, the required spinning reserve demand was reduced tremendously. By reducing the amount of required spinning reserve, the savings on the fuel cost and maintenance for these diesel generators paid for ETAP ILS in the first six month alone.

 

Reliable load preservation system

ETAP ILS scans the system periodically for signs of disturbance and in some cases potential disturbance such as a trip on the pulverizer that crushes the coal for the steam generator. After a pulverizer trip, the coal feed into the combustion chamber will be reduced and eventually will result in a drop on the steam pressure and final electrical output. ETAP ILS does not wait for the system to reach that stage and instantaneously knows how much load shed needs to be done to prevent mechanical stress on generators and the rest of the system. ETAP ILS is trained to think and it always double-checks to make sure the disturbance signal it is receiving is in fact true and not a nuisance signal. With multiple redundant units available, ETAP ILS is the safest and reliable method for load shedding.

Case Study - Cement
$2 Million +
Outage Avoidance Savings
95% Reduction
Unplanned Plant Power Outage

Improved Reliability & Reduced Outage

Lafarge Holcim’s Cement Plant in El Salvador is the country’s leading company in the production and marketing of cement, concrete and high-quality aggregates.

ETAP was approached by Holcim to replace their slow, unreliable load shedding system which proved ineffective in preserving the power system against disturbances caused mainly by power grid due to unstable weather and lightning strikes. Each outage at the plant has an impact of 1.2 million ton's production loss.

The power and functionality of ETAP Intelligent Load Shedding system really hit the mark with the challenges Holcim had at the plant. The risk from unscheduled power outages has all but almost disappeared. The fact that ILS was relatively easily integrated and implemented was the key to an immediate ROI.

Holcim Cement

Eliminate unnecessary load shedding

With Holcim’s power generators running continuously to support a power contract to provide power to the grid to help offset peak loads, the unscheduled outages were proving costly, not to mention compromising the plant’s goals of meeting its own requirements to maintain the process load operating 24 hours per day, every day.  

The plant’s existing load shedding system were proving to be too slow and otherwise too limited in their ability to respond to the broad and diverse range of operating scenarios necessary to satisfy the operating conditions and business objectives of the plant.  In fact, the existing system either would under-shed or over-shed the load causing the system to become unstable and resulting in partial or total plant shutdown.

With the help of multi-threading technology ETAP ILS determines, simultaneously and instantaneously, optimal amount of load to shed under various possible disturbances. Using intelligent grouping and sorting techniques, ETAP ILS determines exactly how much load needs to be shed and what combination of loads would help it reach that target in order to maintain system stability.


Fast response to electrical & mechanical disturbances

Holcim’s ETAP Intelligent Load shedding system remains fully armed at all times, ready to act on multiple scenarios depending on the specific conditions occurring at that time.  The ILS system gathers system parameters throughout the electrical network, including the generation and loading status, to adjust its ever changing load shedding scenarios. By the time an event occurs, the substation (local) controls have already been instructed by the ILS system to act, namely, to switch loads as required to properly load the generators and keep the plant running.  

The ILS system remains several steps ahead of the event condition by virtue of its constant monitoring and modeling of the entire electrical system, taking into account maintenance cycles, operational changes, or any last minute changes in process control.

The ILS system automatically senses changing conditions and responds with new instructions on continuous basis, allowing the system overall to react within 25 milliseconds or less to an event.

Benefits

ETAP ILS Benefits

ETAP predictive load shedding system calculates the minimum-required power to be shed, as well as the best combination of loads for each subsystem according to type and location of the disturbance, actual operating generation, spin reserve, loading, configuration, load distribution, and priority. All is executed instantaneously (no delay) once a disturbance occurs in the system for transient events or after user-defined time delay for steady-state overload conditions.


 

Goes beyond reactive load shedding when a disturbance is detected.

Determines how much load shedding is needed and in what optimal combination to prevent stress on the rest of the system.

Responds to power disturbances instantaneously (no delay) from detection to load shed.

Restores loads incrementally based on knowledge of process and electrical system interdependencies.

Easily test and confirm load shedding logic schemes in real-time mode using integrated Transient Stability Analysis engine.

Utilizes robust calculation methods designed on an open architecture platform that allow system-wide validation of load shedding schemes via simulation prior to field deployment.

 
 
Key Features

Key Features


ETAP Intelligent Load Shedding - ILS™ dynamically and instantaneously determines the best load shedding priority.


  • Operator alerts for marginal operating conditions
  • Display required minimum MW & selected loads
  • Trigger & time-dependent load shedding
  • User-definable control logics & macros
  • User-definable system triggers
  • Display operating & recommended spin reserve
  • System and sub-system islanding logics
  • IEC 61850 communication & automation
  • Display-monitored data on the one-line diagram
  • Predict system response after load shed
  • Operator-friendly interface
  • Load shedding trigger monitoring
  • Unlimited load shedding schedules
  • User-defined load priority & groups
  • Option to simulate & test recommendations
  • VFD load reduction control


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