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FOREST PRODUCTS
 For nearly 100 years, Eaton’s products have helped build power generation, distribution systems, control and drive systems and automated networks that power today’s forest product industry. This experience enhances safety in this industry by focusing on protection, preparation, prevention and standards compliance.
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- Eaton offers a variety of customizable generator-protection and predictive diagnostics solutions to keep the industrial paper mill, steam and electrical processes operating continuously.
- Disaster planning and recovery and continual power quality analysis provide the tools necessary to maintain high-quality, uninterrupted power.
- User engineers from the top five North-American producers of pulp and paper routinely participate as members of our customer focus group, delivering Eaton industry-specific solutions.
- Life cycle extension products and services reduce capital intensity and energy audits ensure optimized operations.
- Eaton is a "safety by design" industry leader in product solutions and services that comply with the latest industry codes and standards.
- Eaton’s Electrical Services & Systems team provides arc flash studies and safety audits to help ensure worker safety by reducing hazardous incidents.
- Workers can attend Eaton training programs designed to help users identify and avoid potential hazards such as arc flash and arc fault.
Systems analysis and design
Eaton engineers create a comprehensive view of the entire power system. With that information, flexibility is strategically built into the system, so that the power system can adapt to changing requirements.
Energy audits
Eaton engineers identify wasteful patterns in total energy consumption from all sources—electricity, steam, gas and compressed air—and recommend more efficient solutions to reduce overall energy use.
Training
Eaton offers training for workers to teach them how to spot danger and avoid it. With this knowledge, workers can do a better job of protecting themselves.
Arc flash hazard analysis
This service identifies places in the power system where there’s risk of an arc flash. Once the dangers are known, they can be managed.
Turnkey solutions
Installation of a modern Eaton system offers improved system service, plant availability and plant operation costs. This turnkey approach enhances the protection of generators and turbines—saving millions of dollars.
Eaton’s Electrical Services & Systems (EESS)
Eaton’s Electrical Services & Systems team of engineers offers a comprehensive portfolio of services tailored for every stage of a power system’s life—design, build and support.
Arcflash Reduction Maintenance System
This unit utilizes a separate analog trip circuit that provides faster interruption times than the standard (digital) “instantaneous” protection, improving safety by providing a reliable method to reduce fault-clearing time.
AMPGARD medium voltage motor control center (MCC)
This highly innovative MCC has an enhanced design configuration for easier maintenance, accessibility and safety.
Low and medium voltage switchgear
Eaton’s switchgear provides centralized control and protection of low and medium voltage power equipment and circuits in industrial, commercial and utility installations involving generators, motors, feeder circuits and transmission and distribution lines.
Predictive diagnostics
A host of online system monitoring technologies, including high-resistance grounding and partial discharge relays, ensure mill process operations can operate continuously without the need for costly scheduled maintenance outages.
Generator life cycle extension solutions
As reliable steam systems are a part of the papermaking process, steam turbine generators must operate at maximum efficiency and reliability. Eaton technologies, which are recommended by global asset insurance carriers, offer innovative protection of on-site generation assets.
Loading Please wait..Green Power Equipment Solutions for the Forest Products Industry +/-
The forest products industry is on the cutting edge of environmental sustainability in the U.S. In fact, cellulosic ethanol made from hemicellulose, a manufacturing by-product of the pulp and paper industry, is being touted as one of the country’s richest possible sources of biofuel.
While major manufacturers are partnering with universities and engineering firms to make this technology practical, individual lumber and pulp and paper mills are being made greener and more energy-efficient with Eaton products and system design expertise.
For instance, a pulp and paper mill built in the 1960s by a major forest product company in the northwestern U.S. was recently able to forestall the building of an entire substation thanks to a new power management system from Eaton. The system, which encompassed a comprehensive and coordinated array of Power Xpert metering and protective devices, monitoring and communications equipment, and software, identified several areas in the plant’s electrical distribution that had been over-designed and could handle additional power capacity.
Because the new power management system also served to facilitate more efficient distribution of the mill’s power load, plans to add a new and expensive substation were scrapped. In addition to these cost savings, the new system yielded a long list of other energy- and cost-saving benefits, including improved system reliability, the implementation of a predictive maintenance program, the ability to negotiate for better electrical rates, and more.
Predictive Maintenance Solutions +/-
In 2008, US industry spent over $600 billion on plant and equipment maintenance. According to industry experts, at least $200 billion was wasted. Other industry statistics suggest that 80% of all failures of plant and equipment occur on a random basis and only 20% of the failures are age related. This means that 80% of failures have not been detected with common test and maintenance practices and therefore have not been prevented. Can the situation be improved?
With the cost of downtime in a large integrated pulp and paper mill ringing in at over $50,000/hour, historic methods to prevent downtime involve time based preventive maintenance practices or scheduled outages. Although this method of maintenance is available at a lower cost than downtime, it is still very expensive and often times ineffective. Preventive maintenance is invasive by design and can sometimes end up being the cause of premature equipment failure. Over 40% of the time that a needed part is identified during a scheduled outage, it is found to not be readily available. The Forest Products Industry is quickly moving toward predictive diagnostic methods. This approach assures that uptime is maximized at the lowest possible cost. Because this approach is non-invasive in nature, the plant can continue to run efficiently while critical components of the system are being checked for reliability and integrity. Facility electrical maintenance is able to diagnose potential problems in advance, while minimizing exposure to potential arc-flash hazards typically encountered during scheduled outages.
Eaton offers leading technology solutions to drive today's industry toward a more efficient and cost effective predictive maintenance model. Installations of Motor Control Centers have changed the tools used by our customer's maintenance electricians from a volt-ohm meter to an operator interface control station. Predictive Diagnostics products such as the Insulgard partial discharge monitoring system have led the way in predicting future failures in large motors, generators and medium voltage switchgear well before the failures actually occurred. Be sure to read how the Forest Products Industry is working together with Eaton to drive toward this lower cost maintenance model.
Generator Life Cycle Extension Solutions +/-
The North American Forest Products Industry self-generates over 60% of the energy required to support its manufacturing processes. Readily available fuels including wood waste and byproducts from the pulping process are burned efficiently to product steam and electrical energy, both which are required in the papermaking process. The future is bright for on-site electrical co-generation plants at paper mills. Compared to fossil fuels, energy sources used by the industry are considered carbon neutral and environmentally friendly. As a result, Agenda 2020, the industry's 20 year plan to move forward into the future, outlines plans for the industry to be a net-exporter of electrical energy within the next 15-20 years. Black liquor gasification and other promising technologies, position the industry as an important contributor to the world's future energy outlook.
Today most integrated pulp and paper mills own and operate at least one steam-turbine generator, typically rated from 10 to 80 Megawatts. Several of the industry's existing generator assets were built in the '50's and '60's and are beginning to show their age. Eaton has demonstrated industry leadership as a total solutions provider in upgrading existing generator systems at paper mills. Four areas where Eaton's Electrical Engineering Services offers solutions include:
- Retrofitting existing high resistance or low resistance generator grounding systems to Hybrid Grounding, improving both protection and reliability.
- Adding a low-cost packaged Partial Discharge monitoring system to detect potential generator insulation failures - including a RTD monitoring package and Eaton's Electrical Engineering Services 24/7/365 on-line monitoring service.
- Vacuum retrofit of obsolete MV generator circuit breakers for improved protection and reliability.
- Replacing obsolete generator excitation systems with new static digital exciters for improved controls and communications.
As on-site power generation systems become more important to integrated paper mills, Eaton offers leading solutions to assure reliable, low cost operation. With over 100 years of industry experience, we understand power generation systems and have the answers to assure your existing generation assets are running efficiently.
