Energy management & optimisation

Yokogawa has added Soteica Visual MESA’s best-in-class energy management and optimisation solution services to its portfolio of plantwide energy management solutions (EMS). They will provide this new offering to its customers through its strong sales and service channels. The company has also acquired 44.3% ownership of Soteica Visual MESA to accelerate the joint development of EMS.

Manufacturers around the world are highly interested in, and have a strong need for, EMS that will help them consume less energy and reduce their manufacturing costs. In addition, there is an increasing trend to optimise the mix of conventional and alternative energy sources used by plants, which can help to protect the environment by reducing the emissions of gases such as CO2 and NOX.

There are two components to energy management in plants. One is to make more efficient the supply and distribution of utilities, such as steam, electricity and fuel that are used by equipment in the main process, and the other is to optimise the energy consumed by the main process itself.

Yokogawa has a competitive edge in control systems and advanced control solution packages for main processes, and helps its customers save energy by optimizing operations at their plants. At the same time, the company has lacked EMS for utilities that can be used to achieve the optimum mix of conventional and renewable energy sources, based on factors such as process operating conditions and energy prices. Until now, the company has had to devise solutions for such requirements on an ad hoc basis.

For this reason, Yokogawa has decided to partner with Soteica Visual MESA, a global technology leader in the EMS field that has worked closely with major oil companies and has a strong track record in the oil industry. The partnership allows Yokogawa to sell Soteica Visual MESA’s well-proven Visual MESA energy management and optimisation solution package, extending the range of solution services that it is able to offer to its customers. The partnership will also allow Soteica Visual MESA to expand its sales of Visual MESA through Yokogawa’s global sales network, with a particular focus on Asia.

Visual MESA is capable of reducing annual energy costs by approximately 2% to 5%. There are approximately 3,400 plants worldwide with $40 million or more in utility costs each year that could benefit from Visual MESA and obtain a return on their investment in one year or less, and Yokogawa will initially be targeting these facilities.

Yokogawa will provide high value added EMS services, including maintenance and sidewise energy management and optimisation services (sustainability services). Yokogawa and Soteica Visual MESA will also cooperate in engineering with the aim of acquiring the knowledge needed to create a new business model for an EMS service that can help to optimise energy efficiency throughout a plant, including the main process and utilities.

“We are very excited about entering into this comprehensive partnership with Yokogawa as it will enable us to dramatically increase the exposure of Visual MESA, our industry leading solution for utilities optimisation”, said Oscar Santollani, Soteica Visual MESA’s CEO. He added, “We have found in Yokogawa a partner with whom we share the same work ethics and engineering rigor. We look forward to a long and fruitful relationship.”

Yokogawa President Shuzo Kaihori commented as follows: “Our customer’s technologically advanced plants need not only to reduce their energy consumption but also to obtain the best mix of conventional and renewable energy sources in order to protect the environment by reducing emissions of CO2, NOX, and other gases. To meet our customers’ growing needs in this area, Soteica is an ideal fit for Yokogawa, allowing us to deliver field proven plantwide energy management and optimisation solutions and services.”