How can digital technology help decarbonize the petrochemical industry?

　　In recent years, China's industrial system has been continuously improved, the overall scale has been expanding, and positive progress has been made in energy conservation and consumption reduction in the industrial field. However, industry is still the key area of China's energy consumption and carbon emissions, and its total energy consumption accounts for more than 60% of the country's total energy consumption. The green and low-carbon transformation of industry has become the only way for China to achieve the "double carbon" goal.

　　At the same time, with the rapid development of a new round of scientific and technological revolution, the value of data as a key factor of production is becoming increasingly prominent. Digital technology has deeply penetrated into the process of high-quality development of the industrial field, helping the industry accelerate towards high-end, intelligent and green.

　　Recently, the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) issued the The report points out that the rapid development of digital technology provides a new path for the low-carbon transformation of industry, especially through the continuous integration with key industries such as steel, petrochemical and building materials, and is promoting the transformation of the industrial structure from high-carbon to low-carbon.

　　Digital technology is driving both production efficiency and carbon efficiency

　　Internet, Big Data, Cloud Computing, Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain...... These well-known digital technologies are deeply penetrating into all fields and processes of the economy and society, not only accelerating the transformation of traditional industries to high-end, but also providing a new path for the green and low-carbon transformation of industry.

　　The report points out that through the integrated use of advanced digital technology, the upgrading and transformation of the whole chain of R&D and design, manufacturing, operation and management, operation and maintenance services can be promoted, and the industry can be promoted to develop in the green direction of low environmental impact, high resource utilization and good economic benefits, and realize the double improvement of production efficiency and carbon efficiency.

　　According to the research results of the Global Electronic Sustainability Initiative (GeSI), in the next 10 years, digital technology will reduce global carbon emissions by 20% by empowering industries such as energy and manufacturing. The integration of digital technology, digital infrastructure and traditional industries will further promote the digitalization and green transformation of industries, release the value of data in all fields, improve the production efficiency of the whole process, reduce the energy consumption of the whole chain, and achieve a "win-win" situation of development and emission reduction. At present, digital technology has been continuously penetrated and integrated with key industries such as steel, petrochemical and chemical industries, and building materials, promoting the collaborative transformation of industrial digitalization and greening.

　　The report points out that based on the relevant applications of the process manufacturing industry, the existing digital technologies mainly help industrial carbon emission reduction through the application of energy control, automatic control of production process, by-product reuse, and system integration control.

　　The contribution to carbon emission reduction in the petrochemical industry will reach 6%~16%

　　To assess the carbon reduction potential of existing digital technologies for key process manufacturing, the research team used a model to evaluate the impact. The results show that in the next 10 years, the existing digital technology will help the three key industries of steel, petrochemical and chemical industry and building materials to reduce carbon emissions by 5%~20%, 6%~16% and 3%~9% respectively, and the empowerment potential is in a period of rapid growth.

　　For the petrochemical industry, the carbon reduction potential of existing digital technologies will reach 37 million tons, 56 million tons and 78 million tons in 2025, 2030 and 2035, respectively. Among them, by-product reuse technologies have the greatest emission reduction potential, accounting for about 43% of the total carbon emission reduction potential of digital technologies. This is mainly due to the fact that the waste heat resources in the petrochemical industry are more abundant than those in other industries, and carbon emissions can be effectively reduced by carrying out power system modeling, real-time monitoring and optimal scheduling of waste heat and other by-products to achieve the purpose of cascade utilization of heat energy and optimization of steam system. This is followed by energy control technology and automatic control technology, which account for about 36% and 19% of the total carbon reduction potential of digital technology, respectively. Finally, there are integrated control technologies, which account for about 2% of the total carbon reduction potential of digital technologies.

　　The report points out that the empowerment potential of existing digital technologies for the petrochemical industry is in a period of rapid growth, and the potential may continue to increase after 2035, but the increase rate may gradually slow down. In other words, the carbon emission reduction of the petrochemical industry empowered by digital technology will increase rapidly in the peak period of carbon dioxide and the early stage of carbon neutrality, and the growth rate may slow down in the later stage of carbon neutrality.

　　Digitally empowered carbon emission reduction scenarios will continue to be enriched

　　Through the rapid development in recent years, the petrochemical industry has a good foundation for automation, and the degree of automation and informatization is at the forefront of the industrial field. At present, digital technology has played a role in empowering carbon emission reduction in energy control, automatic control, modeling and simulation, and pollutant control in the petrochemical industry.

　　The first is intelligent modeling, simulation and automatic control of production and manufacturing. Based on the process flow of the petrochemical industry, the mechanism model is established by using the principle of energy balance and the principle of reaction kinetics, and the process flow simulation is carried out by using the proposed simulation platform to simulate the production status, process system, equipment start and stop, and fault handling, so as to realize the forward movement of production control training. Using the advanced automatic control system of the production and manufacturing information platform and the production device, combined with the energy management system, the complete energy data and process data of the whole process of various energy supply, production, transmission, conversion and consumption can be collected in real time, and the key indicators such as energy supply and equipment start and stop status can be monitored, so as to realize the linkage adjustment of energy supply and production load, improve the secondary utilization efficiency of steam and other energy, reduce the fluctuation variance of process parameters and the energy consumption of the device, improve the comprehensive energy utilization rate, and then promote the emission reduction of the entire production process.

　　The second is the control of environmental pollutants. Through the establishment of an intelligent environmental monitoring and control system, real-time dynamic monitoring, intelligent analysis and visual management of pollutant emission indicators such as concentration, flow, number of exceedances and noise of wastewater, waste gas, and solid waste of production equipment and storage and transportation systems can be realized, so as to achieve whole-process control and emission standards.

　　According to the report, digital technology is expected to gradually release the potential of carbon reduction in carbon asset management and integrated control in the petrochemical industry in the future.

　　Taking the digital management of carbon assets as an example, the carbon emissions and carbon asset data of each link of the enterprise are calculated online, and through data analysis and application, the carbon emissions of the enterprise can be reflected in a timely, accurate and complete manner, so as to realize the pre-prediction, in-process tracking and post-analysis of the carbon emissions of equipment and production processes, optimize the production process in a timely manner, and improve the benefits of carbon emission reduction and carbon trading. In addition, through the establishment of an enterprise carbon asset management mechanism and system, real-time tracking and optimization of the progress of the enterprise's "dual carbon" work and the implementation of the plan, the company's carbon assets can be clear, carbon control in place, and carbon allocation is reasonable and efficient low-carbon management.