Recently, the Fifth Refining and Chemical Enterprise Innovation and Development Conference and New Technology and Solution Exchange Meeting with the theme of “Innovation Leads, Technology Empowers, and Boosts the High-Quality Development of Refining and Chemical Industry” was held in Changsha, Hunan Province. Schneider Electric, a global expert in digital transformation in the field of energy management and automation, attended the conference and conducted in-depth exchanges with user representatives from various refining and chemical enterprises as well as many experts in the industry to explore the way of sustainable development of the refining and chemical industry under the empowerment of digital intelligence technology.

Along with the deepening of the global energy transition, refining and other process industry enterprises are facing the urgent challenges of digitalization, intelligence and green transformation. How to effectively utilize the new quality productivity to promote the transformation and upgrading of the industry and achieve sustainable development has become a core issue for refining and chemical enterprises as well as a wide range of process industry users.

At the conference site, the keynote speech “Open Automation and Digitalization, Empowering Refining and Chemical Enterprises to Achieve High Efficiency and Sustainability” pointed out that “the integration of energy management with automation and digitalization technologies can enhance the total factor productivity and energy efficiency of the entire industrial chain, and is a key area to promote the accelerated development of new quality productivity. Schneider Electric is committed to helping process industry users accelerate the transformation of digital intelligence and achieve efficient and sustainable development through the integration of its own innovative advantages in the three major technology areas of open automation, digitalization and electrification, and relying on advanced, comprehensive, and open integrated software and hardware solutions and consulting-led full life cycle services.”

At the level of open automation, Schneider Electric’s new industrial automation system defined by software and based on the IEC-61499 standard, EcoStruxure Open Automation Platform (EAE), can also help users create an open process industrial control system that decouples software and hardware, and truly integrates IT and OT. It also helps users to create an open process industrial control system that decouples hardware and software, truly integrates IT and OT, and significantly improves innovation and collaboration. In addition, Schneider Electric’s renowned and widely proven EcoStruxure Foxboro DCS distributed control system, Triconex safety instrumentation system and Foxboro instrumentation solution, as well as the cybersecurity solution covering the entire lifecycle, can help users of refining and chemical and other process industries to realize the “safe, stable, long, full, and excellent” while being comfortable. Schneider can help users in the refining and chemical process industries to realize “safety, stability, growth, fullness, and excellence” while coping with all kinds of information security risks comfortably.

At the electrification level, Schneider Electric can provide process industry users with integrated energy management and process automation solutions (EP&P), which can effectively simplify project execution and later operation and maintenance by realizing the interconnection and interoperability of automation and distribution systems, as well as optimize the management of power, production process parameters and various types of energy, thus lowering the overall operating costs and carbon footprint. With powerful digital twin and simulation capabilities, Schneider Electric can also rely on ETAP’s new electrical system digital twin platform to provide full lifecycle optimization and predictive maintenance for the electrical systems of process industry users, helping them to significantly improve efficiency.

At the digital level, Schneider Electric’s AVEVA industrial software highly integrates digital technologies such as simulation, visualization, digital twin, AI and cloud computing, and is based on the dual chassis of the Asset Information Management Platform and the Big Data Management Platform, which ensures data consistency from the edge to the cloud, and by integrating the whole-process data from design to operation and maintenance, it helps enterprises to explore the optimization potentials of their entire lifecycles and empowers the intelligent transformation of enterprises. Transformation.

It is worth paying attention to the fact that through the linkage of energy and power and processes, Schneider Electric can provide an integrated design and operation digitalization solution that runs through the entire scenario of energy “source, network, load, and storage” and “wind power generation, green hydrogen, and green chemistry”. The solution integrates independent digital systems for power generation, energy storage, power grid, hydrogen production, ammonia synthesis, etc., which can help enterprises realize the overall design and collaborative operation and maintenance of upstream and downstream green power, green hydrogen and green chemicals.

In addition, Schneider Electric can combine its deep insight and expertise in the industry to provide process industry users with consulting and full life-cycle services that cover the two major directions of promoting the digital transformation of “intellectual change and digital transformation” and the sustainable development of “dual-carbon landing”. Schneider provides consulting and full life-cycle services covering two major directions, namely, digital transformation and sustainable development, to escort process industry users, including refineries, through the entire process of digitalization and sustainable transformation.

With comprehensive solutions, Schneider Electric has helped many enterprises realize successful transformation. For example, Schneider Electric has provided a leading refining company in Shandong Province with advanced PID rectification technology, APC advanced process control system and RTO real-time optimization system in the process of digital intelligence transformation, which has significantly improved the degree of automation control of various devices in the region and the production smoothness rate. The self-control rate of the oil refining segment’s units increased from 36.62% to 98.67%, and the smooth operation rate increased to 98.14%. The automation rate and smooth operation rate of the chemical industry segment also increased by a large percentage. For example, with the help of Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure open automation platform, a Swiss PET chemical recycling company successfully demonstrated its innovatively developed MADE (microwave-assisted depolymerization) solution, which is capable of recycling PET waste at a rate of 100 kilograms per hour. In this, the decoupling of hardware and software through open automation technology provides the key conditions for large-scale plastics recycling.

Currently, the convergence of open automation, digitalization and electrification provides users in refining and other process industries with a new perspective on transformation, upgrading and sustainable development. Schneider Electric is willing to continue to utilize its advantages in technological innovation and industry expertise to continuously empower refining and wider process industry users, and work together for an efficient and sustainable future.