Industry News

ATLANTA – While high-performance buildings are the obvious choice in today’s sustainability-focused industry, it was only a short 35 years ago that the first standard for energy efficiency was established, setting the engineering engine of sustainability into motion ...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – ASHRAE installed new officers and directors at its 2010 Annual Meeting held here June 26-30.

The new president is Lynn G. Bellenger, P.E., Fellow ASHRAE, partner, Pathfinder Engineers & Architects, Rochester, N.Y. Bellenger is ASHRAE certified as a Building Energy Modeling Professional and a High Performance Building Design Professional. She is the first female president in the Society’s 116 year history.

ALBUQURQUE – ASHRAE has earned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) prestigious ENERGY STAR, the national symbol for protecting the environment through superior energy efficiency, for its renovated Headquarters in Atlanta. This signifies that the building performs in the top 25 percent of similar facilities nationwide for energy efficiency.

ATLANTA –Calculating ventilation rates just became a little easier with a new iPhone application designed specifically for an interactive calculation spreadsheet related to ASHRAE’s ventilation standard ...

ALBUQUERQUE – ASHRAE is recognizing 70 members and one chapter for contributions to ASHRAE and the HVAC&R industry at the Society’s 2010 Annual Conference being held here June 26-30 ...

ATLANTA – The diversity of refrigeration from ice rinks to refrigerant containment to freezing fruits and vegetables is covered in the latest Handbook volume from ASHRAE. The 2010 ASHRAE Handbook – Refrigeration, covers the refrigeration equipment and systems for applications other than human comfort. It includes information on cooling, freezing, and storing food; industrial applications of refrigeration; and low-temperature refrigeration. “The Handbook gives the industry a primer in a wide variety of refrigeration topics, such as...

ATLANTA – Changes to make requirements easier to use in home retrofits are covered in the newly published 2010 residential ventilation standard from ASHRAE ...

ATLANTA – Recognizing his lifetime commitment to sustainable building practices, ASHRAE President Gordon Holness has been recognized with the High Performance Building Congressional Caucus Coalition (HPBCCC) Award ...

ATLANTA – New requirements regarding natural ventilation, exhaust systems and the IAQ Procedure are included in the newly published 2010 version of Standard 62.1 ...

ATLANTA – While the importance of high-performing buildings to a sustainable future is noteworthy year-round, special recognition will be given during upcoming High-Performance Building Week, June 13-19 ...

As U.S. manufacturing roars back to life, resolving engineering challenges and maximizing return on investment were among goals of Siemens Automation Summit and the Siemens Answers for Industry Conference, in Charlotte, NC, June 8-10, 2010. Opening statements at the summit from Raj Batra, president, Industry Automation Division, Siemens Industry Inc., covered “Driving Technology and Innovation Together. The events, held regionally last year to help with travel budgets, moved again to a national format, “a sign that the U.S. Manufacturing recovery is taking hold. After the most severe downturn in more than 80 years, this is a welcome sign to all of us,” Batra said in an opening welcome. As of early June 2010, Batra said, U.S. manufacturing marked its tenth successive month of growth; productivity increased in first-quarter 2010 by more than 6%, consumer spending increased (2 million iPads sold in less than 60 days after launch), housing starts and existing home sales were up, and the U.S. economy grew 3% (in real gross domestic product, GDP) in first-quarter 2010, all proof of economic resiliency. A year ago, U.S. auto industry was on life support and one-third of manufacturing capacity was standing still. We’ve had a tremendous bull run, he said, pleased that recovery has arrived now, rather than years from now, as some had feared. Innovation matters, and the U.S. is the best source global source for innovation, Batra said. Citing statistics from a Plant Engineering magazine survey of 1,000 plant engineers, the “Changing world of the plant engineer,” there’s a war underway for high-technology talent. Top concern registered by the respondents was the state of the economy. The second largest concern was job security and globalization, including outsourcing to markets where the labor costs are lower. The third largest concern was finding employees with the right skills to replace workers expecting to retire in the next few years. These changes offer great opportunities, since innovation represents the greatest opportunity for anyone in manufacturing or industrial jobs today, Batra noted.  Industrial-strength opportunities Opportunities for manufacturing are many, including:

• A Siemens wind blade manufacturing plant in Fort Madison, Iowa, that created 600 clean energy jobs.
• Siemens technology is driving four of the five largest U.S. solar installations. Solar photovoltaics in the U.S. provides 340 MW of power, growing to 2,700 MW in five years. For polysilicon production globally, 34% is in the U.S.
• Adding smart grid functions will help manage power flow and reduce power outages, which cost the U.S. $150 billion a year. Grid R&D has lagged behind other industries’ modernization in the past 50 years. Industry, which consumes two-thirds of all energy, has a vital role to play in defining how the smart grid manages functions, interconnecting more than 9,200 electric generating units, 1 million megawatts of capacity over 300,000 miles of transmission lines.

Intense investments are required • $1.3 billion in venture capital invested between 2005-2009; • $11 billion in the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act; and • $1.5 trillion (forecast) over next 20 years according the Brattle Group. Investments will help energy sources become more reliable, efficient, secure, and sustainable, with more emphasis on two-way communication to the grid, plant-wide asset management, and effective data use. Efficiency, sustainability Energy efficiency efforts include support of the Profinet extension, called PROFIenergy, which helps monitor and control energy use by putting unused loads in sleep mode, Batra said. Because industrial equipment can consume up to 60% of the energy during idle periods as it does during production, a lower-power standby mode is desirable. The PROFIenergy extension triggers standby, power down and wake up from a central location. Working with Siemens, Mercedes Benz piloted PROFIenergy technology, reducing energy costs during non-productive periods (such as nights and weekends) by 75%.  Siemens sustainability efforts in place since 1971 have resulted in the largest portfolio of green products globally, worth $32 billion last year, Batra said, adding that the company has abated 210 million tons of C02 for customers, as a result. As a company, Batra said, Siemens aims to use its technologies to help reduce:

• Energy consumption by 20%;
• C02 emission by 20%;
• Water consumption by 20%; and
• Waste production by 15%.

Product life cycle management Effective product lifecycle management adds efficiency to the supply chain, and 75% of all manufacturing costs are pre-determined in the product design phase, Batra said. Adding to the company’s product lifecycle management (PLM), Siemens recently acquired Comos, a supplier of PLM systems for process industry plants. At the Comos user conference in Brazil in May, Petrobras representatives talked about integrating Comos into its process control system, Batra said, noting that two engineers in charge of commissioning said they completed a year’s worth of work in two weeks. Siemens is the only company offering PLM solutions for discrete and process industries, Batra added. Siemens User Advisory Board Integration: The Siemens User Advisory Board expressed preference in co-locating Siemens Automation Summit and the Siemens Answers for Industry Conference “to expand the available seminar content, showcase demos, and pool of attendees available for potential recruitment into the user community,” said Dennis Inverso, chairman, Siemens User Advisory Board, in a printed welcome statement. Inverso is principal consultant, DuPont Electrical & Instrument Control Systems Group. Those involved in the UAB include, along with Siemens staff, AE Solutions, Air Products, Cargill, Dow Chemical, DMC Inc., DuPont, and Sony DADC. The co-located event was said to include more than 90 seminars, feedback sessions and roadmap discussions along with a solutions showcase. Also see the Control Engineering sustainable engineering channel. Related links include: www.sea.siemens.com www.siemens.com/PLM www.siemens.com/smartgrid www.siemens.com/sustainability www.usa.siemens.com/solutionpartner www.sea.siemens.com/us/Products/Process-Automation/Pages/UserComm_Landingpage.aspx - Mark T. Hoske, Control Engineering content strategist, www.controleng.com, part of CFE Media, www.cfemedia.com.

ATLANTA – Illustrating that concerns about the built environment are shared worldwide, ASHRAE and the Japan Society of Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (JSRAE) recently made a commitment to collaborate by signing a memorandum of understanding ...

ATLANTA – It’s long been realized in the building industry that you can’t manage what you don’t measure when it comes to building performance. But even if you measure, what ensures that those measurements are appropriate and meaningful?

ATLANTA—From smart home controls to solar powered gas refrigeration, undergraduate HVAC&R students in their senior year are able to gain hands-on experience in their field thanks to the 2010-2011 ASHRAE Undergraduate Senior Project Grant ...

ATLANTA – Engineers across the country have begun assessing the energy use of selected buildings as part of a pilot program designed to encourage the building industry to cut energy use and costs ...

ATLANTA –A series of guides written by leading building organizations to advance energy efficiency are positively impacting the building industry, according to a new assessment commissioned by ASHRAE ...

After six months on the job, Honeywell Process Solutions’ president looks at the process automation landscape.

Pharmaceutical companies are placing new emphasis on manufacturing to drive margin and growth; proper use of automation technology is vital, says a report from ARC.

B100 biodiesel derived from brown and black grease from wastewater treatment facilities.

Industrial automation and advanced manufacturing system integrator expands food and beverage, confectionery, pharmaceutical services.