January 2017 - Water Market Insights 214

The market for sedimentation and centrifugation equipment will expand from $7.5 billion in 2016 to $9.8 billion in 2026. On-site service will expand from $1.45 billion to $1.94 billion in the same period. The biggest growth potential is in remote service and monitoring which will increase from $200 million/yr. to $3 billion. If the potential for related remote monitoring is included, remote monitoring and service will generate revenues of $7 billion by 2026. These are the new predictions in N005 Sedimentation and Centrifugation World Markets.

Sedimentation and Centrifugation Revenues $ Millions
Segment	2016	2021	2026
Centrifuge Equipment	3,000	3,500	4,000
Service On-Site	750	875	1,000
Remote Service and Monitoring	100	700	1,800
Sedimentation Equipment	4,500	5,100	5,800
Service On-Site	700	810	940
Remote Service and Monitoring	100	600	1,200
Related Remote Monitoring and Service	50	1,000	4,000

Suppliers of sedimentation and centrifugation equipment have the opportunity to take advantage of the rapid growth in automation and remote monitoring and service. Companies such as Alfa Laval and Evoqua can take a leading or secondary role. Alternatively, the lion’s share of the revenue can be garnered by third party O&M operators such as Veolia and Suez. Software developers such as Emerson, ABB, Siemens and GE could also take a leading role. However, GE is exiting the water treatment chemicals and equipment business, so this does not seem to be in their game plan.

Centrifuge manufacturers are well positioned to take a leading role due to the challenging maintenance requirements for this high-speed equipment. Many centrifuge manufacturers already have remote monitoring programs. Centrysis wireless remote monitoring is web based and tracks 32 key parameters. It includes alerts, reports and service.

Alfa Laval has a number of remote monitoring initiatives including decanter centrifuge condition monitoring at the Metropolitan Wastewater Reclamation District of Chicago. Vibration is monitored and controlled through a X20 PLC from B&R industrial Automation. A custom I/O module has reduced costs and made remote monitoring attractive.

Alfa Laval has expanded the concept to related remote monitoring and service. The Octopus biosolids dewatering centrifuge autopilot monitors and controls all aspects of the dewatering process. This includes material feed, polymer dosing and internal decanter settings. Infrared sensors analyze performance and automatically make necessary adjustments. Alfa Laval also manufactures pumps, valves, heat exchangers and belt filters used ahead of centrifuges. This knowledge can be leveraged to provide O&M for the complete process.

GEA Westfalia is well positioned to take advantage of this opportunity. Their various businesses have been combined into just two. One is equipment and the other is solutions. Engineering has also been centralized. Several years ago, GEA would have bid only portions of a starch plant and now it can bid for the entire plant. Taking the next step to offering remote O&M for that plant is now an option.

Sedimentation and centrifugation suppliers should also position themselves to take advantage of the opportunity to provide remote monitoring and service in collaboration with other suppliers or as sub-contractors to an integrator.

GEA has the opportunity to be one of the participants in remote O&M of gas turbine plants. Plant suppliers such as MHPS have set up remote control centers to monitor turbines. They are now expanding into the balance of the plant. This includes treatment of the oil which is often a secondary fuel for gas turbines.

GEA supplies centrifuges to purify the oil. The gas turbine manufacturers specify limits for the trace elements to ensure safe and economical operation. For sodium and potassium these limits are between 1 ppm and 0.1 ppm. The harmful water-soluble trace elements are reduced to the required levels by separation only or by a combination of washing and separation. Contaminants such as sand, rust and cat fines are removed from the fuel oil under high centrifugal force.

The measurement of some fuel parameters can be continuous. PECO Facet uses light scattering techniques to monitor particles in the gases. However, measurement of the contaminants in the fuel oil requires periodic laboratory analyses.

The integrated system would incorporate the centrifuge condition monitoring with both laboratory and online fuel sampling. If the end user, system supplier, oil quality monitoring supplier and centrifuge supplier all have access to the online data then better decisions can be made.

$125 Billion/yr. Power Plant IoT Instrumentation, Software and Service Opportunity

World electricity consumption is 25,000 terawatt hours per year. Generation of this electricity costs $2.5 trillion per year. Machine to machine communication in combination with remote monitoring and service has the potential to reduce this cost by 5 percent and create a $125 billion dollar per year opportunity. This is the latest forecast in a special ongoing analysis included in N031 Air and Water Monitoring: World Market.

The opportunity incorporates, smart instrumentation, component monitoring, digital data generation at the plant, software programs, remote monitoring, third party operation and maintenance and a combination of subject matter experts and data analytics.

The opportunity is shaped by the ability of sensors to accurately detect the flow of liquids, gases, air, water and solids. The quality of the flow is also critical. Continuous emissions monitoring systems measure the air contaminants such as NO_x, SO₂ and particulate. New regulations have added the need to measure mercury in the exhaust gas and selenium in the wastewater. The temperature, moisture and particulate levels for lubricating fluids used in the rotating equipment are also important.

The need for accurate injection extends to corrosion and scale inhibitors, biocides, pH adjusters, polymers for wastewater treatment and many new chemicals needed for air and water pollution control. These include activated carbon, lime, limestone, ammonia and urea.

Ambient air and water measurement needs include wind measurement for wind turbine optimization, ambient air and water measurement in areas surrounding the plant and many predictive weather measurements for solar and wind operations.

All of these measurements are being enhanced by the development of smart sensors. Tunable diode lasers allow measurement of O₂at critical points in the combustion zone. The incorporation of an analysis function within the instrument itself rather than through the distributed control system has cost advantages and more importantly shortens response time.

Suppliers of this instrumentation are found in the McIlvaine Air and Water Monitoring report in many categories and sub categories.

Measurement Categories	Examples
Function	Analysis, extraction, integration, display, services, consumables, accessories
Medium	Ambient air and water, process liquids and gases, solids, oil, injection chemicals
Properties Measured	Physical, chemical, electrical, other
Measurement Parameters	Count, weight, volume, temperature, pressure, contaminants, viscosity
Operating Principles	Chemical, electrochemical, light, opacity
Mode of Use	Continuous, hand held, laboratory, process

The opportunity varies widely depending on the fuel source. Coal represents the largest potential because it is the leading type of generation and has high needs for measurement.

Instrumentation Market Size by Medium Measured
Fuel Source	Weather	Water	Air	Process Liquids	Process Gases	Solids
Coal	S	H	H	M	M	H
Nuclear	S	H	M	H	H	M
Gas	S	M	H	S	S	S
Solar	L	S	S	S	S	S
Wind	L	S	L	S	S	S
Biomass	S	S	L	S	S	L
Geothermal	S	M	L	H	H	S
Hydro	S	H	S	S	S	S

Condition monitoring of components is well established for lubrication systems for turbines, compressors, etc. The growth opportunities are in measuring not only the health but also the operational information of valves, pumps, filters, separators and other components. Mann + Hummel recognizes this opportunity and has just invested in a large filtration IoT research center in Singapore. Pentair, Flowserve and other pump and valve suppliers are rapidly strengthening their component monitoring capabilities.

GE says that coal-fired power plants could be made approximately 4 percent more efficient with 2.5 percent improvement in efficiencies coming from turbine and boiler upgrades, and 1.5 percent coming from software improvements. The analysis also found that applying all potential upgrades to coal-fired power plants can remove 900 million metric tons of CO₂ (11 percent of total coal power emissions) - more than the annual CO₂ output of the United Kingdom and France combined.

McIlvaine has conducted nine hours of webinars for PacifiCorp with presentations by GE, Emerson, Siemens and others which pointed the way to large savings with combustion optimization. The reduction in NO_x emissions was particularly significant.

The software programs include partnerships between power plant system suppliers and specialized software providers. GE says Predix will enable GE to lead the next generation of industrial progress, through improved manufacturing processes and digitally manufactured products, transforming GE into a stronger and more valuable company. GE believes its digital business will grow GE’s software and analytics enterprise from $6 billion in 2015 to a top 10 software company by 2020. GE has purchased NEUCO who has developed neural networks to control not only the operation of the furnace but also components such as soot blowers.

General software participants include large companies such as Intel with its Wind River subsidiary and specialist companies such as OSIsoft and SoftDEL.

The large gas turbine suppliers have remote monitoring centers which primarily track the health of rotating parts. This is frequently part of the warrantee program. However, companies such as MHPS are branching out to monitor more of the plant’s components. MHPS just opened a remote monitoring center in the Philippines which is monitoring coal-fired power plants. The service center can also provide assistance to power plants not built by MHPS. In addition to its data analysis capabilities, the center can also manage maintenance equipment and dispatch staff in emergency situations. It will, in addition, serve as a training hub for technicians. Every year, around 200 individuals will be picked from both in and outside the company to transfer technical expertise on maintenance and management.

There is a huge potential for companies such as MHPS and GE to work with other suppliers and incorporate hundreds of individual remote monitoring programs. For example, Nalco operates an around the clock monitoring center on water quality. If companies such as Mann + Hummel can operate filter monitoring centers and, if all the results are integrated for analysis and action, it will greatly improve the support for the operators.

There is a big potential for interconnection of facilities in large utility organizations. McIlvaine has been involved with a program for Berkshire Hathaway Energy.

Duke Power has developed central systems which can for example monitor all the pumps at its various stations. However, it is shifting away from the traditional centralized proprietary systems and evolving to support distributed intelligence, interoperability and IoT. Efforts to develop its smart grid have resulted in the enablement of these concepts through what the industry calls OpenFMB (Open Field Message Bus).

Third party operation and maintenance represents the biggest revenue opportunity for IoT in the power industry.

GE Energy is one of the world’s largest third party providers of plant Operation and Maintenance services, currently with more than 16,000 MW at 60 sites in 17 countries under O&M contract. Global resources combined with over 20 years of O&M experience, enable GE to provide complete plant services across the turbine island and balance of plant—for both GE and non-GE equipment.

Siemens, MHPS, IHI and other turbine suppliers also offer similar services. There are a number of companies specializing in O&M including large companies such as Wood and smaller companies such as Ethos Energy and Proenergy. Uniper and India Power have formed a joint venture to support operations and maintenance at Indian power plants.

The generation of large amounts of data is not of value unless it is properly analyzed for action. XLMPR recommends hybrid data analytics marrying the experience based models with ones based on physics and data. The IoT greatly increases the capability for database models but this data needs to be molded by experience. Subject matter experts are needed to provide the niche expertise in each of thousands of areas. The pool of recently retired people can be tapped for their unique combination of knowledge and availability for short engagements.

Utility E-Alert Tracks Billions of Dollars of New Coal-fired Power Plants on a Weekly Basis

• FPL to retire 250 MW Coal-fired Cedar Bay Power Plant in Jacksonville, FL December 31

• City in China's Shandong Province orders Coal-fired Power Plants to cut output due to Smog Notice

• Doosan Heavy wins $2.3 Billion Contract to build Coal-fired Power Plants in India

• India’s NTPC commissions First Unit at 4 GW Kudgi Supercritical Thermal Power Plant

• Duyên Hải-3 (2 x 622.5 MW) and Duyên Hải-3 Extension (660 MW) to be completed in 2019

• South Africa’s Kusile Power Station’s Unit 1 connected to the National Grid

• Mitsubishi Hitachi signs Supply Contract for FGD System at Ugljevik Thermal Power Plant in West Balkans

The 41F Utility E-Alert is issued weekly and covers the coal-fired projects, regulations and other information important to the suppliers. It is $950/yr. but is included in the $3020 42EI Utility Tracking System which has data on every plant and project plus networking directories and many other features.