Pinexo - User friendly tool for energy optimization in process industry

Purpose and goal

The project has aimed to validate the technical and commercial potential of the software tool Pinexo, which has been developed . Pinexo reducees energy consumption in the process industry by the first user-friendly software for optimisation of heat exchanger networks, focusing on key economic parameters. It takes into concideration all important parameters i.e. piping, heat exchanger models and materials, preassure drop and needed exchanger area. It thereafter generates suggestions for rebuild, cost estimations and pay back time of investment and energy savings.

Results and expected effects

The software developed makes it possible for the user to create proposals for rebuilding existing facilities and is not only telling how much energy can be saved, but also how much the rebuild will cost, and an investment analysis with payback time. Investment analysis takes into account all the main cost factors related to remodelling. The combination of a good user experience with advanced flow and cost makes this, a tool that is powerful both in theory and in actual use. The usage of this tool will save a large amount of energy (10-35%) to the process industry, where this is a big issue.

Approach and implementation

After developing the Beta version of the program, the job continued by further improving the program functionality and user interface. A technical person was hired to go through the program and verify the logic behind the formulations and also perform further development. We did a proof-of-concept collaboration project with a large scale dairy to validate performance of our program. By having the real data from industry, we were able to make final improvements and the final version was released in autumn 2014. The software has thereafter been marketed towards the industry and consults

External links

Homepage of the Project/enterprise Pinexo