Within any industrial plant, there is a concern about energy consumption. Monitoring the instantaneous natural gas mass flow rate coming into the plant is critical because it provides information about its natural gas demand. The conventional billing meter only reports consumption over a fixed period (i.e., monthly). Whereas a thermal mass flow meter monitors the flow rate and consumption; thus, it provides real-time feedback about plant upset conditions, peak demand, inefficiencies, and wasted energy.

ISO 50001 and Energy Management

The Plant Manager, Maintenance Manager, Six Sigma Manager, and Results Engineer benefit from the readily available information from a gas line of an independent mass flow meter entering the plant. Furthermore, the newly promulgated ISO 50001 standards define the best practice for energy management, and a rate flow meter in series with the billing flow meter can play a significant role.

Gas Flow Measurement

Sage Prime provides both easy-to-install insertion thermal mass flow meters and in-line thermal flow meters, with built-in flow conditioners that measure and report the mass flow rate of natural gas. This type of direct mass flow meter does not require separate temperature or pressure transmitters, has no moving parts, is highly accurate and repeatable, and has a negligible pressure drop. Most importantly, the Sage thermal mass meters have extraordinary rangeability, of at least 100 to 1, with a resolution of 1000 to 1. This design provides the dynamic operating range and sensitivity necessary to account for wide plant gas demand, whether at peak loads or during the third shift with minimal gas requirement. The meters have bright graphical displays of flow rate, totalized flow, and gas temperature as well as continuous diagnostics, 4 -20 mA output of flow rate, pulsed outputs of consumption, and fully Modbus compliant RS485 RTU communications. Sage also offers a remote-style flow meter with up to 1000 feet of lead-length compensated cable. This design provides the opportunity to monitor the mainline from a distant control room, where the electronics and power are at the transmitter – yet, the probe or flow body has a terminal junction box. Optional wireless Modbus outputs can also be furnished as an option, if necessary.