By Jean Thilmany, Associate Editor

For government and private industry, saving energy means more than simply turning down the thermostat or remembering to shut off lights in unused rooms. In fact, the 1992 Energy Policy Act mandates that by 2010 all federal facilities reduce energy consumption by 35 percent below 1985 levels.

Couple that mandate with the skyrocketing cost of power across America and you have an idea of the scope of the problem faced by the U.S. Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center at Twentynine Palms, Calif. In the military sector, increased consolidation of military bases, combined with manpower reductions and reduced operating budgets, has challenged Department of Defense energy managers to maintain plant performance in the face of ever-increasing energy load demands on central energy plants. On top of this, the bases must comply with the Energy Policy Act.

But cost savings can frequently be carved from the money traditionally lost by improper operation and maintenance of the central heating plant. The key, of course, is finding and fixing problems within the central heating plant, which in military installations is usually a boiler operation. To that end, the Twentynine Palms combat center contracted with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wash., which provided technology to ensure that the system always runs as efficiently as possible. Since implementation in 1994, the technology has saved, on average, 17 percent each year in natural gas costs compared with pre-1994 energy expenditures.

After the U.S. Marine Corps' Twentynine Palms combat center installed technology to ensure its energy system runs effectively, it saw a 17 percent annual savings in natural gas costs.

The Twentynine Palms installation was the first successful use of the technology, which is called Decision Support for Operations and Maintenance, according to Don Jarrell, the principal investigator for operations and maintenance at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. After seeing the cost savings realized at the center, the New York City Housing Authority followed suit by implementing the technology in March of this year.

The national laboratory's technology—called DSOM, for short—which Jarrell helped develop, shows plant operators and maintenance managers exactly how efficiently the boiler and the rest of the power plant is operating on a second-by-second basis. This is done by a series of sensors situated throughout the entire power plant that are, in turn, tied to computer software. The plant operations information is conveyed via a computer screen that displays boiler and plant operations as icons, allowing operators to intuitively understand plant functioning, Jarrell said. In essence, the technology monitors the condition and performance of industrial facilities and reports back to operators when the plant isn't operating in the most efficient manner possible.

The technology uses the principle called "condition-based maintenance," which means that the software immediately detects and diagnoses equipment that isn't running within the most efficient parameters. The technology immediately alerts operators not only to the malfunctioning machines, but tells them exactly what's causing the machines' poor operations so the problem can be addressed quickly.

The Housing Authority uses the system to ensure efficient boiler operation at the Governor Smith Houses, an apartment complex of 12 buildings, each 17 stories high. The cluster of buildings houses 4,500 people. Cost of the technology was $1.4 million and the Housing Authority expects to see a full return on that investment in four years. In fact, the authority has plans to extend the technology to nine similar apartment complexes during the next three years.

But the Housing Authority didn't go online with the technology until employees had fully studied results seen at the Twentynine Palms Marine combat center.

"At Twentynine Palms, we tracked their energy expenditures before we started with the technology, to make sure we knew the numbers," Jarrell said. He worked closely on the combat center implementation. "We estimated that Twentynine Palms saved a quarter-million dollars a year on their gas bill. And that was before the California energy costs increased so dramatically.

"The problem in the armed forces is that they face a staff reduction at the same time as they have to cut their operations and maintenance bills and as power costs rise," Jarrell said. "This technology allows them to cut back on manpower somewhat and to extend their operations and maintenance budgets."

The central heating plant at the combat center is a gas-fired, pressurized hot water plant that provides heat and hot water to more than 15,000 people.

By operating as efficiently as possible, the center now runs its central heating plant at 30 percent over what was considered full capacity before the technology implementation. Using increased capacity, the Marine combat center also found it could defray additional building and maintenance planned for the heating center, thus freeing up planned capital building costs that were slated at around $100,000, Jarrell said.

Energy-saving technology from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory shows a heating plant's boilers as a series of icons so boiler operators can visualize the way the boiler and plant operate.

At the Twentynine Palms center, the operations and maintenance technology gives operations employees computerized, moment-by-moment information about the exact functioning of the plant, the machines within the plant, and the components within the machines. In this way, both the safety and efficiency of the components and machines are continually monitored. If they're not operating as expected, the computer suggests solutions to the operators.

The Twentynine Palms center funded the technology effort, which cost $5.2 million. With the increased energy efficiency and decline in capital expenses, it saw payback in four years, Jarrell said.

"One question we ask ourselves with this technology is, ÔHow do we preserve the equipment being used?' " Jarrell said. "Normal life expectancy for a plant like that is 30 years. However, the people running it sometimes don't understand plant operations, so it was lasting 15 years because things didn't work so well, or they broke. But now we're talking a 30- to 40-year life expectancy."

Computer Icons and Boiler Functions

One problem with boiler operation, according to Jarrell, is that operators have no way of actually visualizing the way the boiler and the plant itself operate. They may learn about it as part of training, but the actual operation itself remains theoretical. However, by looking at the icons on the computer screen, they can actually see the plant layout and they're immediately alerted to machinery that is functioning out of tolerance or, in other words, in an inefficient manner.

"You're talking about some guys who've been boiler operators for over 20 years," said Lew Fielding, the Twentynine Palms boiler plant supervisor. "To throw them in front of a computer all of a sudden is pretty scary."

But the training period is a short one, Jarrell said.

"The computer screen puts up an animated diagram of how the steam is heating the water at that exact moment," Jarrell said. "You watch the operators as the lightbulbs come on. They're seeing stuff they've worked on for five or 10 years and never really understood. Usually, engineering schematics are fairly complicated to understand. But people pick up on this technology representation in a minute."

Employees in the maintenance, engineering, training, and administrative support departments also have access to the computer monitoring system, Jarrell said. Boiler operators, of course, need to see and understand exactly how the boiler is running minute by minute. But engineers must know how to redesign malfunctioning equipment and maintenance people need to know exactly how to fix it. Of course, employees in the administrative department control spending on upkeep and equipment.

"But each of these folks gets their own set of screens to focus on the problem and evaluate it," Jarrell said.

Software in use at a New York City Housing Authority apartment complex monitors heating plant operations and reports on boilers that operate inefficiently.

The engineering screen would show the schematics of the plant and point to exactly where the problem with operations lies. The administrative screen shows a spreadsheet outlining costs. And the maintenance screen details exactly where the boiler problem is as well as how to go about fixing it.

"Having these screens has really helped out all branches of the infrastructure," Jarrell said. "Before, operators could point their finger at the maintenance people and say, 'The pump is broken. Fix it.' But with this, the maintenance person can show that, yes, the pump is broken because you, the operator, are making it cavitate. The teamwork perspective changes markedly."

The Pacific Northwest laboratory's study of the Twentynine Palms installation shows that boiler operators and maintenance people were able to learn their jobs four times quicker after the software installation.

"It used to be there that a guy followed another guy around for two years until he learned the job. Now it's down to six months," Jarrell said.

And that includes the time spent getting over phobias about computers.

"In New York, we have people who've never even played with a computer before," Jarrell said. "Most of the people who run the boilers are tenants in the houses. We're running into people who haven't made it past seventh or eighth grade, and they understand it perfectly."


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