YESTERDAY, a microgrid was an interesting point of discussion.  A nice-to-have, but not viewed as necessary by the executive operating in the G-20 world of the mature power grids.  Most highly industrialized regions rarely lost power, the grid was stable, and electricity rates were reasonable for power-hungry assets who bought power in bulk contracts. 

TODAY, electricity supply is suddenly top-of-mind and front page of the news.

NOW, you can operate your asset on an AspenTech Microgrid Management System™ (MMS), which will enable you to ensure your electricity reliability, confidently increase the level of electrification in your assets, and actively manage and optimize the utilization of electricity for operational excellence and sustainability.

Consider a few industry insights:

• Bloom Energy says that over 76% of commercial and industrial power customers lose power 1-2 times per year!
• The Wall Street Journal reported in August, that the capacity of power-hungry data centers globally is expected to double by 2030, from 60GW to 120GW, leading to an increased power demand.  The grids in the highly developed eastern US will not be able to handle that level of growth as soon as three years out from now, according to analysis conducted by data center investor Digital Bridge.
• In the US alone, in the first seven months of 2024, there were at least three major refinery shutdowns directly caused by power losses.  In two of those three instances, it took more than two weeks for those refiners to ramp full production back up.  In the interim, local gasoline prices were impacted by as much as 0.20 cents per gallon.
• In each of these cases, one of the impacts of power loss was immediate surges in flaring, for process safety reasons, leading to significant annual impact on those assets carbon emissions.
• In a recent meeting we had with the VP of Reliability for a major Asia-based refiner, when asked what his major reliability concern is for his refinery portfolio, his answer was, “power outages.”
• The opportunity for the typical large industrial site that has onsite co-generation and/or battery storage units, with over 10MW power demand, can generate revenue of over $700K per year through active participation in power markets

Is the reliability and cost of your electricity supply a risk today and tomorrow?

Many industrial enterprises say that that risk is real today and in the immediate future. Executives responsible for high power consuming, power sensitive assets are beginning to see over-dependence on the regional power grid is an increasing aspect of that risk.  Microgrids provide a key solution to mitigating that risk today.

To help industrial companies move from simple control of their electricity and captive power generation within their industrial sites, to proactive management and optimization of their electric power resources, a microgrid management system is becoming a crucial digital tool.

AspenTech is now offering a software package designed for industrial users that is based on more than 30 years of electric utility software experience. Built on top of the AspenTech OSI monarch SCADA™ platform, which is installed at over 400 utilities worldwide, AspenTech MMS ensures power reliability and helps optimize your onsite energy system.

Guiding us in understanding what industrial users like refiners, mineral processors, transit systems and government installation will typically need to ensure reliability of their electric power, are several current AspenTech customers already using our digital grid software as microgrids, and a number of diverse customers who have begun discussions around this over the past few months

Here are just two of several examples of how this AspenTech innovation is being used effectively today to improve industrial and infrastructure power reliability:

• One of the world’s top five iron ore producers has begun a journey toward a goal of being the world’s top “green iron” companies.  To achieve that, they have implemented an AspenTech grid solution in an extremely remote mining and power production environment. Today they are managing over 6MW of power, with one fifth of that renewable energy.  A key criterion in selecting the AspenTech solution was the ability to scale up to significantly higher multiples of renewable power over the next several years, over a wide geographic area. Scalability and flexibility of microgrids in a macroenvironment of energy transition is crucial.
• A major, globally important airport, saw the increasing criticality and strategic importance of ensuring always-on power in an airport infrastructure setting with critical power demands of over 20MW with an expected growth curve over future years.  The ability to manage power to avoid imbalances and ensure critical resources are delivered available power first, as well as the ability to quickly island from a surrounding grid, and centralized situational awareness, are important decision criteria in the development of this system.

As a trusted partner providing a range of optimization solutions across the design-operate-maintain spectrum of asset optimization,  AspenTech is excited about the opportunity to help our clients address the increasing relationship between optimization of their processes and equipment and provision of reliable electricity and utilities.

We are already seeing several use cases developing where electricity, the other asset utilities (such as heat and water), and process performance are increasingly able to be optimized together to achieve higher levels of operational excellence.

To learn more about AspenTech’s new microgrid management solution, visit the AspenTech Microgrid Management System web page.