Energy Management at a Mineral-Processing Plant: The Latest Innovations in Metering and Monitoring

Many mineral-processing plants across the globe have been operational for years and are filled with legacy electrical systems of multiple vintages with disparate control and monitoring components. the purpose of this article is to present a case study of one such plant that has been operating for over 80 years. as the original plant was built before the latest innovations in metering and monitoring devices, the plant made a decision to purchase and self-install metering to create a facility-wide monitoring and energy-management system. The project was funded by a corporate program that granted capital funding for projects focused on saving energy. The energy-monitoring devices were integrated with the plant distributed control system (DCS) so that the energy usage throughout the plant is visible to the operators. As a result, the plant operators are making informed decisions based on optimized energy usage. Today, the plant is running more efficiently, as energy usage is measured and visible at all levels across the plant organization.