Our Blandin project group is going to the UPM (United Paper Mills) plant tomorrow afternoon for a second on-site visit. On our previous trips to Grand Rapids, we toured both the UPM plant and the Rapids Energy Center, from which UPM solely gets its energy from. As seen personally from the tours, these are huge environments that consist of steam and water piping that extends for what seems to be miles.
The last time we were at UPM, we toured the #6 dryer line and somewhat familiarized ourselves with the complex components and processes that are fed with large amounts of steam supplied by REC. Fortunately, our group attended a Kadant (supplier) seminar previous to this, which helped in identifying many things that would have been quite foreign to us in terms of what to look for in component and steam optimization.
Since that time our group has been working on ways to optimize steam energy without concerning ourselves with individual components. Because of this, the trip there tomorrow is important. We want to map certain steam lines to see what is used, what is recovered, and what is wasted. Check back for updates.
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