Intelligent motor control centers: Defining the benefits to petroleum and chemical industries

As technology continues to drive innovations, petroleum and chemical enterprises must continue to keep pace to remain competitive in an ever-changing marketplace. The technology trend is to replace systems of yesterday with higher-performance, low-cost, option-rich, networked systems that provide a shorter return on investment and offer more flexibility. As control system technology evolves, systems migrate toward functions that are being increasingly distributed to smarter, more granular, control system components capable of performing localized operations. Most of these functions were once the responsibility of a central or master controller. Systems that integrate intelligent devices, device-level networks, and reporting software into medium-voltage (MV) and low-voltage (LV) motor control centers are a prime example where this trend is increasingly implemented. Technology can deliver improved diagnostics, early warnings used to increase system reliability, design flexibility, simplified and reduced wiring, and additional levels of protection for personnel safety in all process industries via the utilization of intelligent networks. This paper focuses on the next steps of technology integration, intelligent devices, and device level information collection over a single network that provides the convergence of control and information to optimize plant and enterprise wide processes and energy management.