Energy

SOLUTIONS for the Energy & Power Gen Industry

Efficiency, Quality, and Safety Across Your Process

From untreated gas analysis to custody transfer, Process Insights provides reliable measurement solutions for flow, energy content, fuel contaminants and gas stream assay with innovative technologies.  As a market leader in self calibrating moisture measurement solutions for natural gas, we also offer optical solutions for flow measurement, BTU analysis and trace impurities.  Our gas analysis solutions for energy, power generation increase product quality, improve reliability, and reduce risks to your plant, personnel, and the environment.  We know your process.

The energy sector encompasses a broad range of applications each with its own unique measurement challenges.   Power generation from fossil fuels, such as coal and gas, presents the challenge of measuring a range of combustion by-products in a harsh environment, while power generation from nuclear requires safety-critical process control. Some critical issues power gen plants are facing today:

  • Access to energy resources
  • Rising fuel costs
  • Environmental impact
  • Ageing infrastructure
  • Nuclear shutdown
  • Consumer adoption

Smart energy is identifying and partnering with technologies and devices for energy-efficiency. The focus is on powerful, sustainable renewable energy sources that promote greater eco-friendliness while driving down costs.  Our solutions provide real-time gas analysis to enhance efficiency, safety, throughput, product quality, and ensures environmental compliance.


Power Generation

For decades, the power generation industry has faced many challenges in meeting global energy needs.  The grower need for reliable power generation has never been greater. About 20% of the world’s electricity comes from renewable sources. However, most of the fossil-fuel based power generation is responsible for about one-quarter of total CO2 emissions.  Reducing CO2 emissions is an important aspect of power generation.  Industry must implement combustion control must be in place on diesel, natural gas, propane, gasoline, compressed gas, biogas, landfill gas, coal mine gas, sewage gas, and combustible industrial waste.  Harmful components like Carbon Monoxide (CO), hydrocarbons, and Nitrogen Oxides can be monitored with the right real-time gas analyzers for industrial off-gas, enrichment, and combustion control, to meet environmental compliance.

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Hydrogen

Hydrogen is a rich source of energy.  Its popularity is growing.  Hydrogen purification and purity analysis requires high chemical purity of the hydrogen gas. Hydrogen fuel cell use chemical energy to cleanly and efficiently produce electricity.  One key issue with fuel cells is that the performance is dependent on the purity of the hydrogen.  While impurities in hydrogen must be monitored along many steps of the supply chain, only the final product dispensed at the fueling station is typically tested for the full suite of analytes listed in the ISO/SAE standards, as required by regulations.  Our high-performance TIGER OPTICS™ Cavity Ring-Down Spectroscopy (CRDS) gas analyzers are used in many demanding measurement applications from ultra-high purity electronic gases for semiconductor manufacturing to industrial and medical gases.

We have also been working for many years with regulators, researchers, and gas manufacturers to develop measurement solutions for fuel-cell hydrogen analysis in both in the lab and directly at fueling station, and anywhere along the supply chain.  Our industrial quadrupole mass spectrometers (MS) are geared for ultimate performance and allow the detection of multiple contaminants within seconds. With decades of excellence in industrial automation and thousands of installations worldwide, our process mass spectrometers provide the rugged stability and ease-of-use necessary for continuous operation in demanding, mission-critical environments.

Nuclear Energy

Nuclear requires safety-critical process control.  From trace HCl measurements to comply with US EPA rules to continuous monitoring of ammonia slip for reducing the cost of abating NOx, we can deliver reliable emissions gas analyzers 24/7/365.  Our durable gas analysis solutions can help power plant operators quickly identify emissions gas analyzer problems quickly and reduce downtime. Be assured that our portfolio of CRDS gas analyzers can deliver the accurate and stable measurement of gas compositions such as CO, CO2, H2, and CH4 in the biomass gasifier to improve the gasification quality.  Our industrial quadrupole mass spectrometers provide accurate measurement of Heating Value (BTU), Wobbe Index/Density, Combustion Coefficient, Methane, Sulfurs, CO2 , non-methane organics, and even moisture.


Flue Gas Desulfurization

Flue gas desulfurization removes sulfur dioxide (SO2) from flue gas emissions of coal-fired power plants. Coal-burning plants cause environmental and human health hazard.

Flue gas desulfurization wastewater systems can contain contaminants that may interfere with certain laboratory analyses.  Effluent water monitoring must be fast and accurate.  This can be effectively and efficiently treated using our online water analysis solution.

Biofuels & Renewables

Biomass can be converted directly into liquid fuels – “biofuels,” to help meet the world’s transportation fuel needs.  Pyrolysis is the heating of an organic material, like biomass, in the absence of oxygen. Our VeraSpec MB system can be used to probe the in-situ chemical dynamics in hot supercritical and gas-phase hydrocarbons. The ability to identify, by direct observation rather than inference, the key species along the reaction coordinate can be used to generate a “roadmap” for thinking about how these chemical systems differ from those that are already widely understood.  With the search for cleaner energy sources and the reduction of fossil fuel usage driving the energy industry today, we have worked with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) to develop the VeraSpec MBx Molecular Beam Mass Spectrometer.  Since the mass spectrometer is not vented, downtime is reduced to hours, unlike a system that needs to be cooled, vented, and pumped back down to operating pressures, which can take a day or more.  The VeraSpec MBx enables the HTAP to thoroughly analyze hundreds of biomass samples a day – it’s fast.

Questions? We’re here to help.