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Highlights from ABB Customer World 2017
March 13-16 in Houston
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Embrace the fourth industrial revolution 3
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hen ABB was founded more than 100 years we will not rest our efforts to bring you new technology
ago, people would have said its impossible to serve you, when you need it, wherever you are.
for an airplane to fly around the world with- Over the past seven years, ABB has invested $10 billion
out using a single drop of fuel. Last year, it was done in R&D, organic growth and acquisitions in the U.S. We
by Solar Impulse 2, an inspiration for efforts to run the now employ 20,000 people and operate 60 manufactur-
world without consuming the planet. ing sites in the U.S., Spiesshofer added. Here, ABB is
In 2005, who could imagine there would be 7 billion number one for power grids and motion, and were the
devices in industry connected to the industrial internet? first global company to produce robots in the U.S.
And more than 25 billion by 2020. Today, a sensor on a
motor can monitor its health and performance, prevent- Energy revolution touches everyone
ing downtime and lost production, enabling better up- The fourth Industrial Revolution affects everyone,
time, higher speed and better output; increasing motor inside and outside industry. So does the revolution in
life by 40% and reducing energy consumption by 10%. energy. Renewables are kicking into the grid, hand-in-
Do that across 300 million motors, and the energy sav- hand with oil and gas, Spiesshofer said. On the sup-
ings equal the total output of 100 of the worlds largest ply side, utilities must cope with more feed-in points,
power plants. longer distances, volatility and unpredictability. On the
In 2016, Google artificial intelligence (AI) beat South
Korean champion Lee Se-dol in four out of five matches for
the worlds championship in Go. The same AI is expand-
ing the roles of robots by giving them the ability to learn.
These are technologies ABB stands for and applies
in utilities, industry, transportation and infrastructure,
said ABB CEO Ulrich Spiesshofer in his keynote speech
at ABB Customer World, this week in Houston. ABB is
transforming, and is now globally number one or num-
ber two in its four areas: number one in process control,
motion control, power transmission and distribution,
and number two in electrification and robotics, Spiess-
hofer said. We want to be your partner of choice, and
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BB took a significant step forward to further ect, then select the type of I/O much later. Because the
streamline the execution of its customers au- base hardware for every type of signal is the same, auto-
tomation projects with the release of Select I/O mation system designers need only know an approximate
at ABB Customer World this week in Houston. Select I/O count at the design-freeze milestone of an automation
I/O is a redundant, Ethernet-based single channel input/ project. Designers can then order standardnot custom
output (I/O) system that supports ABBs next generation I/O module bases and enclosures, knowing that they have
project execution model. Called Intelligent Projects, full flexibility to alter the mix of I/O types at any point in
the new methodology streamlines execution while de- the project. Further, since control system hardware com-
creasing complexity, project delays and cost overruns. ponents are now standard issue, the factory acceptance test
The cornerstones of ABBs Intelligent Projects execu- (FAT) of control system hardware is a thing of the past.
tion model are efficient cloud engineering, digital marshal- Second, because each channel can take on any signal
ling, standardization and automated data management, type and be digitally marshalled to any controller, the
said ABBs Dan Overly, head of product management - oil, need for physical marshallingand all those cabinets
gas and chemicals. With the release of Select I/O, all of
the data points that make up a project, whether hardwired
to the control system or part of an integrated electrical sub-
station, are now able to be digitally marshalled into the Sys-
tem 800xA architecture. This makes it possible to execute
projects more efficiently by decoupling tasks and becom-
ing more resilient to late changes and delivering projects
faster and more cost effectively.
Available for process automation and safety applica-
tions, this extension to the System 800xA family of Flex-
ible I/O Solutions allows for each I/O channel to be
individually characterized using a plug-in signal condi-
tioning module (SCM). This approach streamlines proj-
ect execution in a number of ways.
First, Select I/O allows users to install standardized cab-
inets with the bases for field wiring early during a proj-
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hats better than vast, deep and longtime platform provides solutions in ABBs three primary ap-
experience? Almost nothingexcept if that plication areas: utilities, industry, transportation and in-
experience is organized, digitalized and frastructure. It also delivers secure, digital solutions on
contextualized, so users can make better, faster deci- premises with fog computing from devices to the edge,
sions that improve performance, optimize applications, in the cloud that goes up from the edge, and now in a
reduce downtime and increase profits. projected intercloud strategy. Indeed, its among vari-
This is the reasoning behind ABBs launch this week ous cloud platforms where meaningful integration can
of its ABB Ability platform, solutions, products and ser- be performed most easily, Jouret said.
vices. In short, ABB Ability encompasses the secure, Were at the beginning of a new age, Jouret con-
digital deployment of the companys decades of proven tinued. Theres risk, of course, but theres also great
know-how in automation, electrification and many other opportunity for capturing performance and value.
technical disciplines to unlock efficiency and productiv- ABB has delivered that value by connecting sensors
ity in each users applications and facilities, according to to devices, and creating insight with analysis and as-
Guido Jouret, chief digital officer (CDO) at ABB. sessment. These assessments are increasing, but this is
ABB Ability was developed in conjunction with Mi- where our competitors stop. ABB, however, makes the
crosoft, which provides common technologies for en- extra effort to harvest data, take control, and enable us-
abling device, edge and cloud application delivery. The ers to do more.
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o help other end users show their managers, ac- one of our sites, but we havent seen a lot of value in them
countants and corporate leaders about the value of yet. Our BASF4.0 team was established looking at these
cybersecurity, Keith Dicharry, director of process new smart devices, and theyre looking at applications that
control and automation for BASF in North America, pre- will bring value moving forward. We will need to address
sented Making the Case for Cybersecurity Investment the challenges and obstacles to implement, but there is
this week at ABB Customer World 2017 in Houston. value in the technology.
Our worldwide automation strategy at BASF begins
with a pyramid of doing the basics before adding new Data context needed
functions and new technologies, began Dicharry. The Dicharry added that BASF and other process industry
fundamental tasks at the base of that pyramid include players are suffering from an everything, everywhere
safety and security. The first devices that did machine-
to-machine communications were pneumatics, and the
strategies used by todays controls arent a lot different.
The change now is that digital devices can be hacked
into, and there are people trying to get in.
Unfortunately, instead of dealing with cyber probes, in-
trusions and attacks in a logical way, Dicharry reported
that many process industry users are suffering from shiny
things disorder (STD). This is the desire to get smart
phones, tablet PCs and other new technologies into the
hands of staffers, and attract new employees, without first
considering whether those new technologies will justify
investment in them and if they can be applied securely.
A lot of STD things are making their way to smart de-
vices at BASF, so we try to slow them down some, and
first find out if theyre really going to add value, explained
Dicharry. Theres an attitude of if you build it they will
come, but I think thats the reverse of what should be hap-
pening. Wed started implementing mobility devices at
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ervices are more valuable when theyre digitalized with ABB Ability Cloud Services.
and connected. Thats the philosophy behind the
ABB portfolio of offerings for robotic reliability Five service options
and optimization. Connected Services is an improved ABB Connected Services, formerly known as remote
way to manage and monitor your ABB robots, said David services, is broken down into five different solutions be-
Quevedo, technical support manager, discrete automa- cause not everyone needs the same things. The services
tion and motion division, in ABBs robotics business unit. are offered cafeteria-style with separate costs per solu-
We have a 24/7/365 operation, so were always there. tion. The five solution offerings include condition moni-
Quevedo explained how market trends have pushed toring & diagnostics, backup management, fleet assess-
the evolution of robotic services during his presentation ment, asset optimization, and remote access.
at ABB Customer World this week in Houston. Condition monitoring & diagnostics features access
We are moving from cost-based to value-based ser- to the robot user interface, which includes an alarm and
vice enabled by digitalization, he said. We used to be diagnostics dashboard with statistics. Its free during the
cost-focused, time-based and reactive. Weve moved to factory warranty period, if the customer connects, and
value creation, where we want to tell you how every- then $250/robot/year after that.
things working and be able to predict failures with re- Even when the robot is working fine, we are doing diag-
mote monitoring thats condition-based and predictive. nostics, said Quevedo. Connected Services scans the con-
With new tools and service offerings, ABBs next direc- troller and the arm, so we can trend the data. When theres
tive is to help customers to get to increased productivity, in- an alarm, we can tell you whats happened and how to pre-
creased mean time between failure (MTBF) and reduced vent it in the future. Through ABBs MyRobot interface,
mean time to repair (MTTR). Digitalization is but a means alarms and other data can be monitored by the customer.
to providing its customers with better peace of mind.
Digitalization enhances our capabilities to support
and add value, explained Quevedo. We are moving
into the digitalization market. Were increasing up-
time, reliability and efficiency throughout the lifecycle.
In 2007, we were already a pioneer in robot remote ser-
vices, with optional hardware allowing for reduced time
to fix. Today, we are Connected Services, the HTML5
customer interface and the Internet of Things, Services
and People. Were looking to move into the application-
monitoring service, and we want to move into the cloud
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team power brought us the first industrial rev- Today, weve connected 6.4 billion things, by 2020
olution in 1712, the assembly line the second it will be 20 billion. Increased connectivity offers huge
around 1870, and automation the third with the potential for improvements in many areas, said Mat-
PLC in 1969. Today and tomorrow, were experiencing thias H. Erhardt, segment manager, Food & Beverage,
the fourth industrial revolution, Industrie 4.0, with pro- ABB, to attendees of his session, Data use and com-
liferation of information technology and the ability to pliance in FDA-regulated food and beverage environ-
visualize the interactions of people, things and services. ments at ABB Customer World this week in Houston.
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or years, high and rising oil and commodity of looking at things, said Jose Bustamante, executive vice
prices spurred plant construction, expansion president, business development and strategy, Fluor Corp.
and modernization without much regard to cost. We must collaborate more, to discuss the standards, spec-
Then prices fell, bringing many projects to a screeching ifications and practices we have taken for granted. How
halt. The ensuing hiatus has given owner/operators and can we change them to make them more cost-effective?
engineering/procurement/construction (EPC) compa- Clients come to Fluor with their latest designs, and those
nies several years to reconsider their options for how they might save 10-15%. We want to start from scratchsome
go about their businesses. call it zero-basedand ask, what are their goals? Whats
Now, prices have started to rise and there is new inter- the minimum kit? Bustamante said. Then together, Fluor
est in projects to boost capacity and improve productiv- and the client can add HSE, safety systems, redundancy,
ity. But rather than simply return to the boom time etc. where its actually needed, he said. With this ap-
methodologies of the past, companies have the oppor-
tunity to evaluate their methods in light of recent rapid
advances in engineering methods, automation and the
connectivity provided by commercial information tech-
nology and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT).
The Wednesday morning keynote panel discussion at
ABB Customer World this week in Houston, titled Next
level operational excellence, roamed over a wide range
of topics related to improving project costs, uptime, pro-
ductivity and efficiency.
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he Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and dig- and this space, he said, casting about the room, is go-
italization are driving innovation. As industry ing to have a big impact on society. The people in this
segments increasingly go digital, connecting room are using the technology that feeds into thatma-
them and their data via the cloud has quickly become a chine learning, cloud learning. Were excited about part-
priority with benefits. nering with ABB on the Ability platform.
Disruptive changes are more likely to affect industries
that have yet to be digitalized. Using lessons from seg- 2% of a trillion
ments ahead of the digital-implementation S-curve, Avi- ABBs Jouret sees tremendous upside in the amount of
jit Sinha, Microsofts director of business development value that can be created, based on the 15 primary in-
for intelligent cloud and IoT, and Guido Jouret, chief dustries that ABB covers. These industries can create
digital officer for ABB, sat together for a lunchtime panel a trillion dollars of value, he explained. And because
discussion, moderated by ABB president of the Ameri- many of ABBs customers are still on the knee of the im-
cas region, Greg Scheu, at ABB Customer World this plementation S-curve, Jouret believes his company can
week in Houston. They discussed how the two compa- capture 2% of that value, which translates to $20 billion
nies partnership in developing the ABB Ability platform in revenue. The only uncertainty is how quickly things
has benefited end users, as well as what the digital future will happen.
has in store. Adoption of new technology tends to be on the slow
When we look at the Industrial Internet of Things, side, but the IIoT could be an exception, explained Sinha.
it ties back to the mission of our company, which is to In substance, we view the speed as being different, he
empower every person, said Sinha. We strive toward said. Theres an appetite for risk, but, in the Industrial
a higher cause. We look at hard-to-do science problems, IoT, the risk of failure and error can be manifold.
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dditive manufacturing is a relatively new way ufacturing processes. 3D printinga synonym for all
to make components lighter, stronger and additive manufacturing processescan be broken down
sometimes less expensively. It also provides the into seven categories, which include material extrusion,
capability to reduce component stock holdings and over- powder bed fusion, material jetting, binder jetting, vat
heads, as well as the ability to produce unfinished com- photopolymerisation, sheet lamination and direct en-
ponents that are closer to their desired shape (near net ergy deposition. The processes vary in their methods of
shape), thus reducing subsequent machining using tra- layer manufacturing, and individual processes differ de-
ditional methods. And with ABBs simulation and off- pending on the material and machine technology used.
line programming software, RobotStudio, the number While similar in appearance to welding, one of the
of manufacturing sequence steps can be reduced, com- processesdirect energy deposition (DED)is actually
pressing manufacturing lead times. additive manufacturing. The word welding as defined
The American Society for Testing and Materials by the American Welding Society conveys the joining
(ASTM) F42 group formulated a set of standards (Stan- of two or more pieces of metal, explained Mark Ox-
dard Terminology for Additive Manufacturing Tech- lade, ABBs market development managerjoining &
nologies, 2012) that classify the range of additive-man- cutting, who presented the latest information on DED
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aced with high project costs, some end user compa- Phase by phase
nies are taking the engineering/procurement con- Like most projects, this one proceeded in three stages.
tractor (EPC) out of the equation and engaging di- Phase 1 was the definition stage, before funding or ap-
rectly with their software, equipment and service suppliers. proval, where ABB and Alcoa openly discussed needs
When the Alcoa plant in Baie-Comeau, Quebec, and what Alcoa was trying to achieve. The big change
needed to add a rectifier system to increase potline cur- here was that there was no EPC between Alcoa and
rent and provide additional redundancy, it asked ABB ABB, said Gilles Schami, Eng., operations manager,
to take full lump-sum, turnkey (LSTK) system respon- aluminum electrification, ABB.
sibility for conceptual design, scope definition, costing, ABB was part of the very first stage, said Pa-
detailed system design, equipment engineering, proj- trice Dub, Eng., project director, Alcoa Canada Co.
ect management, procurement, civil works, installation Theres a risk in not getting competitive bids, but we
and commissioning. Alcoa provided project monitoring, knew we would be getting the right technical package.
technical review, subcontractor approval and compli- We have plants around the world and we know the price
ance with internal processes. of a transformer. Instead of competitive bids, we used
The project was presented in the session, Lump-sum, our experience to evaluate costs.
turnkey project partnering approach to reduce over-
all project cost at ABB Customer World this week in
Houston.
Alcoa Baie-Comeaus TR49 project to add a 50 kA,
1120 VDC transformer began in April 2015 and was
completed in August 2016. Equipment and ABB services
were part of a LSTK project, with installation and civil
work on a cost plus basis. Alcoa and ABB worked di-
rectly together, with ABB assuming most of the respon-
sibilities traditionally expected of the EPC.
Along with saving money, eliminating the EPC en-
sured that resources stayed focused on project deliver-
ables, not on preparing RFQs, evaluating bids or sitting
in meetings.
But it was not all wine and roses.
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hats so great about transforming perfectly How the digital house is built
good, real-world, analog process values for Of course, Microsofts definition of architecture started
pressure, temperature and flow into digi- with information technology, but the digital revolution
talized ones and zeros? Much easier data accessibility, is now bringing in more demands for efficiency from
flexibility, analysis and communications for more opti- the operational technology side, said Kodeih. And, be-
mal and profitable operations, thats what. cause Microsofts mission is to help every individual do
Operational expenditures (OpEx) in the worldwide more, were developing strategies and digital architec-
chemical industries is about $1.6 trillion per year, and tures for oil and gas, chemicals and other industries.
OpEx in the oil and gas industries is about $600 billion Kodeih added that digital transformation in the pro-
per year, so making any little improvement in them is an cess industries rests on three pillars: personal comput-
opportunity worth billions of dollars, said Rami-Johan ing, handheld devices and new interfaces; intelligent
Jokela, head of digitalization, ABB. cloud platforms; and reinventing productivity and busi-
At the same time, research by McKinsey finds that ness processes to give everyone access to the data they
69% of oil, gas, chemical and other process industry need to optimize their operations.
projects have been running about 20% over budget in ABB has been driving toward digitalization for 20
recent years; 79% of these projects have been missing years in oil, gas and chemical applications, but these en-
their schedules, often by months; and 30% of their con-
trol loops are broken, added Havard Devold, group
vice president and digital lead for oil, gas and chemi-
cals, ABB.
These were some of the challenges explored by a
three-person panel of experts from Microsoft and ABB,
who also described how their partnership is benefiting
process control users in the chemical, oil and gas indus-
tries at ABB Customer World in Houston. The panel in-
cluded Jokela, Devold and Dania Kodeih, enterprise and
solutions architect for oil and gas, Microsoft.
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large part of success in politics and other en- Sense locally, send wirelessly
deavors is simply showing up, but sensors that To make the leap to wireless condition monitoring, Pare-
could improve condition monitoring in process schi explained the initial impulse is to spread sensors
applications often cant show up because wiring is too everywhere and try to use them for predictive mainte-
costly or its physically impossible to locate them where nance. Sensors have been monitoring the big assets for
theyre needed. To solve this problem by getting sensors a long time, and many companies do it, he said. Its
where they need to go and bringing back information for trickier to monitor smaller pumps and equipment, so the
better condition monitoring, ABB has developed com- chemical industries have been looking at what condition
pact, rugged sensors that can be deployed on motors, monitoring technologies they can borrow from other in-
pumps, fans and other equipment, can measure vibra- dustries, and wireless sensors were suggested for rotating
tion and other variables and can send details back to a machine analytics and distributed sensing.
central location for analysis and improved decisions. ABBs two wireless sensing solutions include its WiMon
The oil and gas world is changing a lot due to the ex- wireless monitora bearing-mounted, screw-on, battery-
treme effects of low prices, and so its hard for many users powered vibration sensorand its upcoming Smart Sen-
to stay profitable, said Diego Pareschi, global product man- sor for low-voltage electric motors on compressors, pumps
ager for rotating machines, oil, gas and chemicals, Process and fans. WiMon has been available for several years,
Automation Division, ABB, in a presentation this week to
attendees of ABB Customer World in Houston. So, weve
been talking about using wireless sensors for condition mon-
itoring and gaining more visibility into oil, gas and chemical
(OGC) processes, especially rotating equipment, as theyre
the most common cause of downtime in OGC plants.
Pareschi reported that the most important assets in
OGC plants are pumps, compressors and other equip-
ment. These devices are their heartbeat, he added.
So, we looked at present maintenance practices and
found they mostly use break-and-fix processes. But then
we look at our smart phones and smart wristwatches and
look at our rusty plants and processes and ask, Why
cant they use these consumer technologies, too?
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he public gets what the public wants. Consumer from the administration has been about EPA overreach.
demand is a consistent driver of production and Its my belief that with or without a clean power plan,
supply, and that is a powerful incentive in the youre still going to see cleaner energy portfolios because
energy industry. its what our customers want. Youll see more coal-plant
Under the Trump administration, theres a stated de- retirements and more renewable energy. The trend is go-
sire for more infrastructure investment. Were support- ing to continue because customers want it and investors
ive of that, said Maureen Borkowski, chairman and are interested in that. That impetus is going to continue
president of Ameren Transmission, an energy carrier with or without changes by the Trump administration.
in the midwestern United States. One of the concerns Borkowski and Claudio Facchin, president, power
OPERATIONAL EXCELLENCE
DEPENDS ON DIGITAL
DISCONTENT
To discover opportunities for improvement, be dissatisfied
with the status quo
Paul Studebaker
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rom equipment productivity, reliability and energy Singh, vice president of engineering at OLAM Inter-
efficiency to project engineering, sourcing and dis- national, a seed-to-shell agribusiness operating 200 fa-
tribution, operational excellence offers myriad op- cilities in more than 70 countries with 16,000 employ-
portunities for improvements. Attendees of the panel dis- ees. Digital has a role to play from farming through
cussion, Next level operational excellence: Benefits of processing and distribution, through the entire chain.
digitalization at ABB Customer World this week in Hous- With every click we are generating data and the poten-
ton learned that these opportunities come in many forms, tial for bottom-line improvements.
but only by opening your mind to the possibilities. We can improve our machine efficiency (OEE), ma-
For us, digital is leveraging data and technology terial efficiency (less waste), manpower efficiency (re-
to develop new business models, said Narinder Pal duce labor and do more with the people we have), and
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echnology is an instrument of change. It can be with how were producing and using energy as a so-
disruptive, enabling, subtle or timely, but recent ciety, said Terry Oliver, chief technology innova-
technological leaps have affected not just re- tion officer at Bonneville Power Administation (BPA).
search and development (R&D), but the way companies Electricity used to flow one way in the system. Now
think about R&D in industries as diverse as power, min- customers have photovoltaic systems, and were seeing
ing, automation and oil & gas. two-way flows on systems that were designed for one-
In a roundtable discussion at ABB Customer World way flows. To monitor the quality of these new power
in Houston this week, several technology officers shared flows, BPA is using a technology developed in the 19th
their fears and their triumphs in the face of the continu- century to look at the grid 60 times a seconda signifi-
ing waves of technology advances. cant adjustment to a technology that was used once ev-
In the utility sector, were facing some huge changes ery two seconds when first introduced.
A
bad headache with no remedy is worse than drilling with hydraulic fracturing.
a super-bad headache with medicine close at This combination lets us access oil and gas we
hand. could never reach before, added Leveille. As for data
For instance, booms and busts have buffeted the analytics, where it used to take us 20 days to drill a
North American and worldwide oil and gas indus- well, we can now do it in just 13 days. In addition,
try throughout its history. However, despite recent data analytics can be used anywhere, which makes it
price-drops and other challenges, ConocoPhilips most powerful when combined with unconventional
and Chevron reported in a panel discussion at ABB oil production. This is why we expect to achieve even
Customer World 2017 that recent technical inno- more in the future.
vations and accessible raw material resources have Leveille, Trond Unneland, senior upstream advisor,
them feeling optimistic about their industrys perfor- Chevron, and Chuck McConnell, executive direc-
mance going forward. tor, Energy Environment Initiative, Rice University,
The two big technical revolutions disrupting oil teamed up for the panel, Designing business trans-
and gas, and causing players to rethink their business formation and the future of energy production, at
strategies, are unconventional reservoir development ABB Customer World this week in Houston.
of oil and natural gas from shale, and large-scale per-
formance improvements aided by data analytics,
said Greg Leveille, CTO, ConocoPhilips. The U.S.
was the worlds largest oil producer for much of the
20th century, began a 35-year decline starting in the
mid-1970s, and regained the title due to unconven-
tional oil.
Leveille reported that the U.S. has daily production
of 25 million barrels of oil equivalents, compared to
Russias 20 million barrels and Saudi Arabias 15 mil-
lion barrels. However, the U.S. would only produce 12
million barrels of oil equivalents per day without un-
conventional production, which combines horizontal
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aula Gold-Williams, CEO of CPS Energy Co. wind and solar. It serves eight counties, and its present pro-
in San Antonio, Texas, started as an accountant file includes 41% natural gas, 27% coal, 13% nuclear, 12%
when she joined the utility power industry about wind and landfill gas, and 2% solar. The utility has $2.6 bil-
30 years ago. Over the years, she served in almost every lion in revenue and $11 billion in assets.
supervisory, managing and leadership role on her way to A lot of energy companies in Texas must pick a lane
the C-suite. generation, transmission or customer-facingif theyre
Back then accounting was as fraternal as it could be, not municipally owned, explained Gold-Williams. In
said Gold-Williams, who is also African American. Ive our case, because weve been owned by the city of San
told my daughters how it was, and theyre just aghast. The Antonio since 1942, and must answer to the city council
industry has changed a lot since then, but not enough. and mayor, we have a fully integrated and diverse energy
Gold-Williams kicked off the Women in Industry: portfolio, including gas, coal, an investment in nuclear,
Empowering Women to Leadership program this week 1,000 megawatts (MW) of wind, and 500 MW of solar,
at ABB Customer World with the keynote address, Past, including a 5-MV photovoltaic facility. In the next 20
present and future. The program was sponsored by ABB years, we are expecting that mix to change.
and energy conference organizer EUCI.
Gold-Williams acknowledged that gradual evolution
has enabled more opportunities for women in energy
and other industries, but she stressed that women must
also be willing to make a habit of seizing them. Thanks
to ABB and EUCI for launching this awesome partner-
ship, which looks like it will get bigger each year, she
said. This event is a good chance to network, but we
must also know how to make changes every day, and the
way to do it is by not boxing ourselves in.
Powerful profile
CPS Energy Co. is a 157-year-old, municipally owned util-
ity in San Antonio, Tex., which started out producing nat-
ural gas, and then added electricity production originally
based on coal, nuclear, and more recently on hydropower,
The fewer answers they have for you, the more it allows
you to design your own success. Paula Gold-Williams,
president and CEO, CPS Energy, advises women in
industry to say yes to opportunity, even when the path
ahead is less than clear.
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nnovation at the edge of the grid is changing the rela- solar generators. In North Carolina, more generators want
tionship between utilities and their customers. Renew- to connect more renewables in remote locations. They
ables and electric vehicles (EV) are only the beginning. dont realize the affect on the grid. Thats a farm field,
Solar always rises faster than we anticipate. And the theres not a big wire there, Caldwell said. But our cus-
energy storage price curve is amazingsoon it will be tomers are at the edge of the grid and we have to meet
commonplace, said Rob Caldwell, president, Renew- them there. We have more clean energy, more distributed
ables and Distributed Energy Technology, Duke En- energy, and we need to give customers what they want,
ergy. More new homes will be net-zero homes because which is convenience, choice, control and cost. We need
the cost is becoming much lower, so it will be built in to manage the grid to deliver that, with power quality.
at the front end. Technology is going to do more than
we realize, and faster, but this will not happen for every- Demand forecast: Flat, with ripples
body. There will remain a mismatch of customers. Overall, we still see flat growth in demand, despite
Caldwell joined Tom Rowland-Rees, lead analyst, En- electric vehicles, said Rowland-Rees. Everywhere, we
ergy Smart Technologies, Bloomberg and Tarak Mehta, see digital infrastructure and smart grid technology go-
president, Electrification Products Division, ABB in a
panel discussion moderated by Greg Scheu, Americas
Region president, ABB, at ABB Customer World this
week in Houston.
When we first started looking at this space in 2004,
there was 20 GW of wind and solar combined in our
portfolio. That rose to 147 GW in 2015, representing an
investment of $349 billion, said Tom Rowland-Rees,
lead analyst, Energy Smart Technologies, Bloomberg.
Renewables are growing at a phenomenal rate, and
theyre moving away from utility-scale generation with
the rise of distributed solar. We expected rooftop solar
to grow depending on the region. And that growth is al-
ways exceeding our forecasts.
Duke Energys territory in the southeast U.S. now has
3,000 MW of solar power and 13,000 customers who are