Advanced process control aimed at energy efficiency improvement in process industries

This paper proposes an Advanced Process Control framework aimed at energy efficiency achievement and improvement in process industries. Model Predictive Control is the adopted control strategy: an architecture based on several cooperating blocks is proposed. The developed basic control framework has been enriched and customized for its installation on industrial processes. Steel industry billets reheating furnaces and cement industry clinker rotary kilns are examples of customized applications. With respect to the previous control systems, based on standalone controllers and/or plant operators manual conduction, strategic trade-offs between opposing objectives, e.g. production targets meeting, product quality specifications fulfillment, and energy efficiency achievement, have been ensured, together with significant improvements on process control.