Optimize gas balance and enhance decision-making for integrated steel manufacturing
Integrated steel manufacturing processes heavily rely on steelmaking gases. These act as fuel for crucial downstream processes like electricity generation, reheating furnaces, sintering, pelletizing, and calcination. Optimizing the distribution of these gases presents a significant challenge for integrated sites. The dynamic and complex nature of gas usage leads to energy waste through excessive flaring, increased costs, and heightened carbon emissions, exacerbated by a lack of visibility and transparency between isolated production units.
Integrated sites recover and use Blast Furnace Gas (BFG), Coke Oven Gas (COG), and Converter Gas (BOFG) in downstream processes. These gases are mixed or enriched with natural gas at mixing stations based on consumer needs like heating value and composition. Boilers produce steam for use across the site at various pressures. Gasholders offer limited storage due to high flow rates. When supply exceeds demand, excess gases are flared, and extra steam is vented. Optimizing gas and steam flow rates and mixing ratios at integrated sites is usually suboptimal and needs improvement.
Viridis Dispatch addresses these challenges with a non-intrusive approach, targeting the optimization of steelmaking gas and steam distribution in integrated plants. Leveraging sophisticated artificial intelligence methods such as machine learning and evolutionary algorithms, this powerful tool simulates and optimizes different operational scenarios to determine optimal dispatch process parameters and setpoints. It seeks to minimize flaring, maximize downstream equipment performance, and increase energy generation, all while considering operational and safety restrictions.
![](https://live.cdn.cms.sms-group.com/_processed_/7/d/csm_Monitor_Viridis_Dispatch_cf475e8689.webp)
Customer challenges addressed
- Dynamic and complex nature of gas usage leads to energy waste through excessive flaring
- Increased costs due to inefficient gas distribution
- Heightened carbon emissions caused by suboptimal gas balance
- Difficulty in improving gas and steam distribution parameters manually
- Operational and safety restrictions affecting gas distribution optimization efforts