Industrial Plant Load-Shedding Controls

Six times during the previous year the local utility supplying power to a large Midwestern soap manufacturing plant suffered power outages, shutting the plant’s lines down and incurring high maintenance costs. Previously, the utility had installed an engine-generator in a combined heat and power (CHP) application. But it could not produce enough energy to run the entire plant in the event of another utility interruption. Stanley Consultants devised a novel power load-shedding scheme that would keep essential parts of the plant operating if main power failed, essentially creating a microgrid backup system for the plant.