Hope to See You in the Next Two Weeks at the Chicago Conferences

Bob McIlvaine will be attending both WEFTEC and Filtration 2017 and would look forward to talking with you.  You can reach him at rmcilvaine@mcilvainecompany.com or office: 847-784-0012 ext. 112 cell: 847-226-2391

The WEFTEC conference starts on September 30 and will end on October 4. The exhibition in McCormick Place runs from October 2-4.  Bob will be meeting with exhibitors to discuss the markets for flow and treat products and services for each of the large operators and OEMS (as explained below).

Filtration 2017 will be held at Navy Pier in Chicago where 1500 attendees will be able to view 140 exhibitor stands in addition to a number of cutting edge presentations.  Tuesday, October 10 will be devoted to presentations. There will be a session on IIoT where Herve Buisson, Vice President of Veolia Water will cover some of the water industry's IIoT initiatives and probe the ways that the industry can create smarter filters.

·       Frank Stamatatos, President of SecureAire Inc will address IIoT and

Explore the relationship between the Internet, Filtration Technologies, and their application in critical environments.

·       Review the current Internet application categories and how they fit in with Filtration. 

·       Describe SecureAire's method for applying the IoT in controlling IAQ in critical environments. 

·       Offer provocative thoughts on the future of the Filtration Industry with IoT.

The key note speaker at the Tuesday luncheon, Philip Whitaker, president, and CEO of AAF Flanders, will provide insights on why there has been an upswing of M&A activity involving filtration-related companies and what performance metrics should current filtration companies focus on to enhance their value.

The exhibition will be open both Wednesday, October 11 and Thursday, October 12.

Flow and Treat Purchases by U.S. Municipal Wastewater Treatment Plant Operators will
exceed $13 billion this Year

U.S. municipal wastewater treatment plant operators are anticipated to spend $13.2 billion for flow and treat products and services next year. The majority of these purchases will be made by just 50 operators and 30 engineering/consulting firms.

Chicago MSD operates seven wastewater reclamation plants.  It is also expanding its scope by encouraging nearby food processors to send waste to the plant for conversion to biogas. This will increase its sludge processing, compressor and air pollution control purchases. The Chicago Metropolitan Sanitary District includes seven reclamation plants.  Los Angeles Sanitation's operations are approximately half the size of those in Chicago.

McIlvaine is forecasting flow and treat product and service expenditures for 550 operating companies and 400 OEMS, EPCs and process sub system companies worldwide.  The wastewater purchases in many countries are concentrated among just a few operators.  Suez operates more than half the plants in Chile and serves 20 million people with wastewater treatment in China.

In the U.S. the engineering/consulting firms play a big role.  The merger of CH2M and Jacobs creates an entity which is both designing and operating wastewater treatment plants.  The estimated flow and treat decisions influenced by this company are in excess of $600 million/yr.

There is a metamorphosis in the way purchases will be made in the near future. Process management system suppliers are providing monitoring and control of every valve, pump, and filter from remote monitoring centers.  Suez is monitoring hundreds of plants from its European base.  The equivalent of millions of total lowest cost of ownership analyses are continually generated.  This development will profoundly change the route to market as explained in N031 Industrial IOT and Remote O&M.

Profiles of the 100 largest operators and EPCs worldwide are included in 62EI North American Municipal Wastewater Treatment Facilities and People Database  which is being expanded to include the major worldwide purchasers.

Detailed forecasts for each of the 550 major purchasers are shown in the relevant market reports listed at http://home.mcilvainecompany.com/index.php/markets

DSUA Conference delivered Unique and Valuable Information Last Week

Bob McIlvaine was the keynote speaker last week at the Dry Scrubber Users Association conference in Philadelphia where he made predictions about the future of coal and analyzed the potential for IIoT and Remote O&M for dry scrubber system operators.

The McIlvaine focus has been to create new digital alternatives to face to face communications. When the corporate expert is viewing continuous analysis of performance of every valve and every pump in all the scrubber systems in the fleet, he already has much more information than can be delivered by the local sales representative or that he can gather by walking the floor at Power-Gen.

In the utopian world, cloud-based systems provide the data analytics and make decisions to minimize the total cost of ownership (TCO) with only minor contributions from subject matter experts. The problem with this concept is that it does not create an environment for innovation.  As was demonstrated many times by discussions at the Dry Scrubber Users Conference, personal interaction among 150 very knowledgeable people is a very valuable way to improve the TCO of scrubber systems.

The latest annual meeting in Philadelphia last week was "Navigating the Future."  Two plant tours (Logan and Carneys Point) were conducted on the first day followed by two days of presentations and discussions. Presentations by the operators of these two plants and others were interspersed with supplier coverage of relevant case histories and products.

Both the importance of personal interaction and the power of IIoT and Remote Monitoring were provided with presentations by Logan, Carney and Primex.

Here are the services being offered by Primex which supplement and utilize the OSI software in place at both plants.

 Performance Assurance services:

Weekly: Monitor, Diagnose and Communicate Scrubber Performance Issues

·        Remote monitoring of critical process parameters.

·        Identify and prioritize urgent issues potentially affecting safety or reliability.

·        Diagnose, communicate and facilitate troubleshooting with onsite O&M personnel.

Monthly: Interpret Key Performance Indicators and Recommend Related Actions

·        Compile and interpret key FGD performance indicators including stoichiometric ratio and automatic process control stability.

·        Identify correlations and factors affecting safety, reliability or efficiency.

·        Interpret changes and recommend related actions to improve performance.

Quarterly: Facilitate Scrubber Optimization Team Building and Goal-setting

·        Benchmark and compare efficiency with similar plants.

·        Interpret long term performance trends and correlations.

·        Identify improvement opportunities and recommend goals.

·        Facilitate action planning and scheduling.

This program empowers IIoT with weekly, monthly, and quarterly IIoW (Wisdom).

Many demonstrations of innovation were provided at the conference. Here are some.

Innovations

·         Flow splitter for atomizers

·         Humidity analyzer for high particulate conditions

·         Wash cycle for Fujikin control valves

·         Better metal coating selection

·         Bag design to better resist corrosion

·         New additives for mercury capture

·         Bag design to remove more SO₂ and mercury

The attendees spent a good deal of time exploring ways to improve operations which we would characterize as

Wisdom Potential

·         Reduce calcium-to-sulfur ratio and save lime and reduce ask disposal cost

·         Reduce corrosion

·         Reduce material buildup

·         Dislodge accumulated particulate

·         Offset loss of experienced personnel with remote connection for semi-retired niche experts.

Broadening the DSUA Reach

In the future, there will be more dry scrubber systems installed in the rest of the world than in the U.S. Also, there is a great deal of wisdom to be garnered from operators of systems in other countries. McIlvaine is making a proposal to DSUA to offer additional services which will attract an international membership and will also provide opportunities for monthly communications.

Dr. Jianchun Wang (Joe) gave a presentation on Thursday which underscores the value of the international initiative. Joe works for Longking, which by McIlvaine calculations, has installed more dry scrubbing systems than any other supplier. It has supplied 60 percent of the dry scrubbers for power plants in China. Our calculations would be that there is a total of over 800,000 MW of scrubbers of which 40,000 MW are dry systems. This brings the Longking total to 24,000 MW.  In addition, Longking has installed many dry systems in other industries. Longking is also a leader in China and the world in other air pollution control technologies. Their position in China is as follows:

·         No. 4 in FGD

·         No. 8 in SCR

·         No. 3 in Fabric Filter

·         No. 1 in Hybrid ESP & FF (including 1,000 MW installations)

·         No. 1 in Wet ESP

Longking has been a licensor of the Lurgi CFB scrubber technology. Harald Sauer was one of the main engineers behind the original Lurgi CFB activity. He continues to consult with Longking.

Joe's speech covered the use of wastewater from an EDV scrubber at Sinopec as the slurry liquid for the dry scrubber. China is mandating zero liquid discharge. So this installation provides two advantages:

·         Eliminates a wastewater problem

·         Reduces lime consumption due to the sodium in the wastewater

The Dry Scrubber and other users' groups are a unique source of subject matter expertise. The value presently only derived by attending the conference can be shared to the benefit of all. The challenge is to find the best way for this sharing to take place.

Bob McIlvaine can answer questions and can be reached at: rmcilvaine@mcilvainecompany.com 847-784-0012 ext. 112