British Columbia’s new regulations requiring 5% renewable content in gasoline and diesel fuel supplied in the province will come into effect this year.  The regulation is a significant step towards B.C.’s goal of reducing harmful greenhouse gas emissions by 33 per cent below 2007 levels by 2020.

Fransen Engineering has worked with three major fuel marketing companies to provide ethanol gasoline and biodiesel for distribution.  Tanker Truck Loading Racks (TTLR) were not capable of blending and shipping ethanol blended gasoline or biodiesel blended ultralow sulfur diesel, but Fransen staff designed major changes at TTLR to enable fuel blending as well as off loading to storage.

Biodiesel

Major changes to the TTLR for biodiesel included specific filtering, heating and blending requirements.  100% biodiesel must be maintained above its cloud point temperature.  Temperature control was achieved by heat tracing pipes and heating storage tanks.  There are options of blending in the tank or at the rack.  Fransen Engineering has provided engineering for either solution.  Maintaining product integrity is the number one requirement that required specific filtering and blending. Blend ratios covered a wide range from 2 to 20% to meet market demands.

Ethanol

Blending of large volumes of gasoline required unique blending facilities.  Rack blending of multiple streams taxed the existing metering preset equipment.  Entire new rack systems were implemented where justified.  As an alternate solution, Fransen Engineering designed a PLC system to function with the preset equipment.  This allowed for multiple stream options and blending options without costly upgrades.  Ethanol poses the requirement to upgrade fire protection systems.  Water deluge systems were changed to foam systems with improvements for increased coverage.

Our very own Jack Vanier was featured in the latest edition of Current, which is BC Hydro Power Smart’s online newsletter.

Jack Vanier is a huge proponent of energy management as a process and, specifically, of energy managers as a means of getting it right.  He sees BC Hydro Power Smart’s Industrial Energy Manager Initiative - which provides 100% funding of a position for those who apply by November 30, 2009 - as a unique opportunity.

The challenge is to convince senior management to support and commit to the initiative.

“It’s important to identify the person who’s in a key position, who can bring that support back,” says the energy management consultant.

Click here to read the full article on BC Hydro’s webpage: http://www.bchydro.com/news/articles/conservation/energy_manager_justified.html?WT.mc_id=current-11-19_energy_manager

Fransen provides high quality specialized development and management of water resources for Industrial and Municipal clients.

Clients from all sectors are facing increased challenges surrounding the management of water resources.  A water management program first starts with the identification of the raw water supply to system processes or in the case of municipalities, supply to various community demands.  Often the supply can be obtained from multiple sources.  The most ideal scenario is where the supply can be a waste stream from another area.  For example, utilizing captured storm water to augment a surface water source.

The management program then follows the water through its use to the resulting generation of wastewater, which is either reused or discharged safely to a receiving environment.  Again there may be several receiving environments that when combined, provides a sustainable approach. Fransen can include solutions that range from very simple to more innovative technologies.  Although innovative approaches often appear very attractive, some old basic approaches often provide the most effective strategy to closed loop management of water resources.

Fransen brings a great deal of experience in thermal recovery processes from our experience in the Pulp and Paper industry.  This expertise translates well into water resources systems such as digesters as found in the municipal field.

Another strength of Fransen is the extensive in-house facilities, equipment and resources to implement multi-discipline projects.  Fransen can build what we propose allowing our clients to use our services in the early scoping stage, right through to commissioning of the upgrades.  This provides our clients with reality checks for constructability as well as budget constraints.  We pride ourselves on providing solutions for a wide variety of project sizes, offering excellent customer service and most comprehensive solutions.

When explaining the concept behind Power Smart to our clients, they are typically surprised.  “You mean BC Hydro is paying to have their Customers buy less of their product?”  The rationale is a directive from the BC government, which in its 2007 Energy Plan mandated that 50% of all BC Hydro’s incremental resource needs are to be met through conservation by 2020.  This is in line with the most basic principle of Energy Management - the cheapest, greenest, and most sustainable kilowatt of power is the kilowatt you don’t use.

Power Smart offers a series of different incentives for their Customers to review their existing facilities and production systems, identify changes that make the biggest impact on their energy consumption, and even offers financing to make the changes that are recommended in the studies.  Fransen Engineering has worked with a variety of clients to review their systems and make recommendations on changes that reduce overall power consumption by 10% to 20%.  In addition, Fransen Engineering has served as Energy Manager to several of the largest industrial clients in British Columbia on a continuing basis, helping to maximize process and system efficiencies with a full suite of technical tools.

In light of governments setting lower allowable emission limits to combat climate change, there is yet another incentive towards greater energy efficiency.  Fransen Engineering has several individuals, who are trained as Certified Energy Managers, and many of our energy projects have received awards for innovation and the cost effectiveness of any solutions identified that make a significant reduction to overall plant power consumption.

You bet!  The trend amongst our clients is towards greater emphasis on the environmental impact of their operations, not only to satisfy legal requirements (which was often the justification for environmental efforts in the past), but also increasingly to improve their corporate image and to satisfy shareholder demands.  This makes good business sense for our clients because it can lower their cost of capital by allowing them to appeal to a broader range of ethical investors.  It also improves their ability to attract and retain top talent - especially the next generation of talent, who are increasingly demanding to know the impact of their work and that this impact be as positive as possible.

The majority of Fransen’s sustaining and upgrading work has always been focused on efficiency improvements, which generally result in both cost and environmental improvements.  Our goal is to help our clients to identify and reduce waste and increase their overall resource utilization.  In this way we help save money for our clients and reduce their environmental footprint at the same time.  Further emphasizing and broadening our understanding of the environmental impacts of our actions will allow us to add even more value for our clients.

The steps we have already begun to take and that we intend to accelerate include: reduce our own footprint, integrate environmental considerations into our engineering work, and further engage clients on this basis.

Ray Westerlaken, P.Eng. - Regional Manager, Northern BC

Please join us in welcoming Ray back to the Fransen team.  Ray is an electrical engineer who also has a depth of experience in instrumentation and process control.  He was previously with Fransen between 1993 and 2000 working out of our Richmond office before moving to Edmonton, where he worked for Colt Engineering for seven years and gained valuable project management experience.  His family recently relocated to Prince George and Ray is just wrapping up an MBA.

As of September 8th, Ray will take over management of our Prince George office and coordination of our Northern BC project work from Bill Verdi, who will continue to provide support to the PG office for the foreseeable future.  We would like to thank Bill for his personal sacrifice in providing leadership for the Prince George office while we filled the role with a permanent PG resident.

Jack Vanier, P.Eng., CEM - Team Leader, Energy

Please join us in welcoming Jack Vanier to the Fransen team.  Jack is an electrical engineer who has significant experience with energy management which he gained over 35 years working primarily in the pulp & paper industry.  Most recently Jack was with Catalyst Paper, where he was the Energy Manager for the Crofton mill and also assisted the other Catalyst mills in meeting their energy objectives.

Jack will assume the role of Team Leader for our PowerSmart/Energy team.  In this role, he will work closely with Randy Wunderlich, George Coelho, Jonathan Ho and others who have done an excellent job of building relationships, procedures and tools, and completing successful projects over the past couple of years.

Canfor operates a Bleached Chemical Thermal-Mechanical Pulp (BCTMP) mill in Taylor, British Columbia.  The mill is a significant user of electrical power, consuming up to 65MW of electrical energy demand.  In 2007, the mill embarked on a Sustainable Energy Management Program jointly funded by Canfor and BC Hydro under the Industrial Powersmart Program.

As part of the program, the team conducted a preliminary mill wide industrial energy audit and developed an ISO based energy management system manual and related procedures.  The opportunities for improvement identified in the initial audit became the projects to be implemented in the first year of the program.

After implementing an energy use reporting system (EMIS), it became possible to target and report on specific areas within the process to identify best practices and project impacts.  Throughout 2008, several projects were implemented and the overall impacts tracked using the Monitoring Targeting and Reporting tools developed by Fransen Engineering.

One of the first projects to be implemented was the result of an employee-generated idea to replace the pulp cleaning system rejects tips with a new wear resistant material to help reduce the cost of reject refining.  The original cleaner tips were subject to excessive wear, resulting in excess pulp being rejected and thus extra refining power input . Immediately after changing the trips, the power usage in the secondary and rejects refiner system improved by almost 30GWh/year.  Project costs were negligible (the new cost of tips was roughly $30/each, $10 less than the original tips).

At the end of the first year of the program, an independent Measurement and Verification Professional estimate the total savings for the entire program to be worth over $3,000,000 per year to the Canfor Corporation.

The program was co-managed by Craig Thomson of Canfor Taylor, Randy Wunderlich, P.Eng. of Fransen Engineering Ltd, with the support of Kevin Wallace, P.Eng. and Matt Steele of BC Hydro PowerSmart.

In order to improve their pipeline capabilities in the Puget Sound area, which includes metering delivery stations at Anacortes and Ferndale, Kinder Morgan has constructed a new pumping station at Laurel, Washington.

Two 2,500hp medium voltage pumps were installed with the capability of serving either of 2 different pipelines, or both pipelines at the same time.  The relief at the station was upgraded, and the two 96,000 barrel storage tanks re-connected and brought back into service.

The project was challenging due to the complexity of pumping requirements and station safety had to be at the forefront of all decisions.  Along with the 2 pumps, a 300hp medium voltage booster pump was installed to increase pump suction pressure from the storage tanks.

3D modeling was used to ensure the complex layers of piping would fit and allow for maintenance to all valves.  Modeling was used in reviewing alternate layouts and arrangements that lead to a practical layout of the site, piping and electrical facilities.

All equipment was commissioned and brought online during the winter shutdown in early 2009 without any delays to the terminals.

Owner: Kinder Morgan (Canada) Inc., Calgary, AB. (Alan Waggett)

Civil/Structural, Mechanical and Electrical/Instrumentation Engineering and Design: Fransen Engineering Ltd., Richmond, BC.  (Kevin Savage, P.Eng.; Raymond Tong, P.Eng.; Doug Morris, P.Eng; Mark Lafferty, P.Eng.)

Construction: Diamond B Construction, Bellingham, WA. (Peter Chapman, Tom Franks)

Power System Studies

One of the core services that our Electrical department offers is Power System Analysis in the form of comprehensive power system studies.  Our Clients might require a power system study if they are building a new facility, making major changes to an existing facility, or to improve overall system reliability and safety.

Under the broad heading of Power System Studies there are various specific types of studies including:

• Fault (short-circuit) - Determination of fault levels throughout a system and ensuring installed equipment is adequately rated for the expected fault duty

• Coordination - Optimization of protective device selectivity to ensure maximum system uptime and proper equipment protection if faults do occur

• Arc Flash - In conjunction with the short circuit study, the arcing fault incident energy is determined at all major system connecting points, such as MCCs, so that workers exposed to energized equipment ensure that the PPE they are using will adequately protect them from arcing faults, and when possible, methods are presented to reduce the arcing energy to lower levels

• Load Flow - Ensuring that adequate power is available when it is needed is essential, such as during heavy loading and motor starting. Reliability and safety is critical, and hardware must be chosen and utilized within its load ratings and these are all verified and checked under various operating conditions.

• Motor Starting - During motor starts, there are extra loads placed on the power system under many circumstances, and these demands must not have a negative impact on the rest of the power system. Corrective measures can be evaluated such as utilizing soft starts, reconfiguration of transformer taps, and new starting schemes.

• Harmonics - Modern power systems incorporate equipment such as VFDs that can result in higher harmonics in the system, which can in turn place extra stresses on the power system resulting in higher than normal heating and also affect protective device accuracy and performance. Identifying areas of high harmonic distortion is important to mitigate these effects.

Fransen has been completing Power System studies since we first opened our doors in 1980.  Our team has a depth of both theoretical expertise and practical experience, having completed these studies in a variety of industrial settings using the latest advanced software tools.

Fransen Engineering offers full 3D Scanning (also referred to as High Definition Surveying) solutions using the latest time of flight laser technology for mechanical, piping, structural, civil, electrical, and instrumentation applications.

Based on cutting-edge technology, high-definition survey uses a narrow laser beam to “sweep across” a target object, so that hundreds of thousands of closely spaced measurements can be taken in a matter of minutes. When these scanned measurements are displayed on a computer, a dense representation of points (a point cloud) blankets the target. The results can be viewed and navigated much like a 3D model.

Once the point cloud has been created, specialized software can then be used to draw solid 3D objects over the points. The result is a useable model that can be modified or added to using our standard 3D design tools.

When should our clients use this service?

• Lack of accurate record drawings
• Difficult and/or unsafe access for taking measurements
• Tight project schedule limiting time available for design

What is the Process for conducting a 3D scan?

• Client meeting to confirm extent of the existing plant to be processed and the end use of the information
• Site visit to perform scan
• Download and process ‘point cloud’ data
• Create a full or partial 3D model
• Utilize the model as per project requirements
• Store for future use and update

What are the Long Term Impacts of 3D Scanning?

• Safer acquisition of data
• Enhanced accuracy of design resulting in better prefabrication
• Enhanced interdisciplinary coordination
• Reduced construction costs and safety risks
• Reduce design costs
• Improved accuracy
• 3D visualization aid for constructability and safety reviews
• Georeferencing for easy integration into GIS systems