Maintenance-centric energy management of industrial plants assisted by demand response

Asset management is an integral part of every industrial plant. Here, the goal is to improve the efficiency of the system while reducing the cost of maintenance and risk of failure. Traditionally, asset management has been performed as time-based maintenance or corrective maintenance; however, in order to reduce the consequences of component failures on the operation of the overall system many plant managers have moved towards more advanced condition-based or reliability-centric maintenance techniques. Here, the asset manager would adopt a more proactive maintenance approach based on the condition of the component and its importance for the overall production plan. Although shutting down a process for maintenance purposes has long-term benefits, it may accrue costs associated with the lost revenue, inventory buildup or wasted labor. A solution is put forth in this paper that counteracts financial losses due to preventive maintenance with direct benefits gained from demand response (DR). Within this context, maintenance scheduling is coordinated with DR, which is used as a tool at the asset manger's disposal in order to offset these financial losses. A case study is presented for a sample industrial plant in order to further explain the design concepts.