Motor systems in the chemical and

petrochemical industry
 Chemical Industry Profile (1)
• Present in all areas of life.

• Products are found in food, clothing, housing, communications,

transportation, leisure activities.

• Very diverse industry. Sectors include.

• Petrochemicals,
• Plastics,
• Detergents and soaps
• Colorants and fillers
• Agriculture : fertilizers, crop protection.
• Biotechnology
• Catalysts
• Chlorine and Halogens.
• Oleochemistry : intermediates for food, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, leather,
soaps and detergents,…
• Paints, coatings and adhesives.
• Food (additives, stabilisers, ..)
• Other…. 2
Chemical Industry Profile (2)

• Chemical production worldwide > 1.7 Trillion $ (30 % US, 35 %

Europe, Asia 27 %, Others 8 %) (*)
• Employs about 10 Million People worldwide (*)
• Big corporations versus small enterprises.
• Research intensive (major companies typically spend between
4-6 % on annual sales). R&D typically highest for life science
companies and lowest for commodity chemicals producers.
• Capital intensive business. Capital spending typically 6-8 % of
annual sales.
• Growth : est. 2.5-3.5 % annually for coming 5 years.
• Industry federations :
• ICCA (International Council of Chemical Associations) : worldwide
• CEFIC : European
- UIC (Union Industrie Chimique) : France
- EEPC : European Ethylene Producers Committee (European)

(*) : data ICCA (2002)

3
Output of Subsectors of EU-25
Chemicals Industry

Source : Eurostat data based on calculations by IFO, Munich 2005

4
Energy use of chemical industry : EU-
15 in 2003

5
 Comparison of energy data sets :top-down
vs bottom-up

• Model including production processes of 52 of most

important bulk chemicals developed by Utrecht
University and ECN (*)
Units = Mtoe WE Wold
52 Products Chemical Industry 52 Products Chemical Industry
Modelled IEA (data 2000) Modelled IEA (data 2000)
Electricity chlorine industry 2.5 12.2
Electricity others 2.0 8.5
Electricity total 4.5 15.0 20.7 74.8
Fuel 23.6 33.3 106.4 247.4
Total Energy consumption 28.2 48.3 127.0 322.1
Feedstock 53.9 65.7 325.5 352.1

Reproduced from paper presented at ECEMEI congress in 2004

Analysis of Energy use and carbon losses in the chemical industry
Authors : M. Neelis, M. Patel, P. Bach, K. Blok

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 Use of electricity in the chemical
industry
• Main user : electricity used for electrolysis in the chlorine
industry.
• Other main use : electric motors to drive:
• Compressors
• Pumps (centrifugal, reciprocating)
• Fans
• Agitators
• Extruders
• Packing machines
• Conveyor belts.
• …
• Other uses of electricity in chemical industry : process heating,
UV-lights, instrumentation, …

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Use of electrical motors in the
chemical industry

• Not possible to give general guidelines as to use of

electrical motors in the chemical industry.
• Chemical sector encompasses very different types of
plants.
• Old versus new plants. Chemical industry has a long
history in Europe. Some sites still operate plants that are
more than 30 years old.
• Small versus big sites.
• Integrated versus non-integrated sites.
• Electrical consumption of chemical companies varies
from under 0.01 MW to over 100 MW.
• Electrical motors : varying from 0.1 kW (metering
pumps) to over 30 MW (compressors in ethylene
crackers : France)

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 Profile of Petrochemicals.

• Petrochemicals : overview of plants.

• Ethylene crackers : produces ethylene, propylene and by-
products.
• Aromatics extraction units
• Styrene plants
• Ethylene oxyde plants
• Propylene oxyde plants
• Polyethylene plants
• Polypropylene plants.
• …..
• Characteristic : large plants.
• Ethylene crackers in EU have capacity of 250 – 900 kton/year C2=
• Integrated sites (« Verbund »)
• Electrical consumption typically in excess of 10 MW.

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Profile of Petrochemicals

• Steam is an important energy carrier : consumed by

some processes, generated by other processes.
• On sites equipped with a cracker, steam generated at
pressures of 100-130 barg. Heat only required at a level
of 20 barg or lower. Steam used to drive main turbines.
• In case of spare machines, often one turbine + one
electrical motor for reliability purposes.
• Site will typically contain several electrical motors bigger
than 100 kW and even bigger than 1 MW.

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Use of turbines in the petrochemical
industry

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 Use of electrical motors for pumps.
Electrical efficiency only small contributor to
overall efficiency of
process.
Design
operating point
Actual operating
point

Pump efficiency can be Optimised

operating point
much more determining.

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Reasons for deviations between actual
and design operating point

• Operating philosophy has changed over time. Design not

revisited.
• Operating conditions fluctuate, so that operating point
fluctuates over time.
• Debottlenecking of plant, without modification to pump.
• Plant is being operated below capacity because of lack
of demand or poor reliability.

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Reasons for deviation between design
and optimised operating point.

• Design includes to generous overdesign factor for

pressure drop.
• Control valve with too high DP installed.
• Actual operating flow after plant optimisation different
from assumed design flow.

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Solutions for improving energy performance
(apart from installing higher efficiency
electrical motor)

• Change impeller of pump and install bigger control valve

taking less pressure drop.
• For pumps in complicated circuits, e.g. cooling water
circuits, change impeller of pump and install booster
pump for branches in circuit requiring higher pressures.
• Install variable speed drive.

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Example : Use of electrical motors by
Total Petrochemical.

• Special situation in France : big compressors on

ethylene crackers (up to 30 MW) driven by variable
speed electrical motors : electrical efficiencies in the
order of 0.95 to 0.97.
• Difficult to say something about older electrical motors,
except on a case by case : efficiencies initially OK may
have degraded e.g. due to rewiring of motor.
• Total Petrochemicals specification for new motors
requires EFF1 according to CEMEP definition (up to 90
kW).
• For bigger machines, selection takes into account
efficiency of motor at 50, 75 and 100 % operating point.
• Use of variable speed motors not yet widely spread.
Reasons : reliability, ease of operation.

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Conclusions

• Chemical industry very diverse : No general picture can

be presented.
• Electricity use represents less than 30 % of energy
consumption of the total chemical industry (less than 15
% if feedstock is taken into account).
• For high volume chemicals production, contribution is
less than 20 % (about 5 % if feedstock is taken into
account).
• Motors in the range of 0.1 kW up to more than 30 MW
used.
• Application of combined heat and power on large
complexes to improve energy efficiency of the site.
• Chemical industry has worked very hard to improve its
energy efficiency.

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Evolution of energy use of chemical
industry in EU-15

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 Energy efficiency in the US industry

Energy Efficiency in the US Chemical Industry

170
Energy Efficiency
160
Energy consumption
Production Index
150

140

130
Index (1980=100)

120

110
100.0
100 96.2

88.9
90
84.0 82.7
79.8 81.4 81.1 80.9
77.4 78.9
80 76.8 76.1 76.5 76.2 76.6 76.9 75.3 75.2 74.9
73.3
71.4 71.1
70

60

50
1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002

Source: ACC (American Chemistry Council) and Cefic

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