Petrochemical giant achieves sustainability goals with monitoring technology

Chandra Asri, the largest integrated petrochemical company in Indonesia, has significantly boosted sustainability through Nalco Water’s 3D TRASAR Cooling Water Technology, which enables effective remote and digital monitoring of water operations. Since the 3D TRASAR system was first installed at Chandra Asri’s plant in Cilegon, Banten, in 2015, the company has gradually moved more of its water monitoring to the program and, in 2020, reported its largest ever savings in water, energy, greenhouse gas emissions and waste.

In 2020, Chandra Asri’s Cilegon plant achieved annual savings of 348 million liters of water; 6 million kWh of energy; 470,000 m³ of wastewater and 2,300 tons of CO₂.

Allan Yong, Ecolab senior vice president and market head, Southeast Asia, hopes the progress made by Chandra Asri will inspire other companies to look at how they can use water more efficiently.

“The population growth and speed of development in Asia requires businesses to carefully manage resources with a focus on resilience and responsible operations,” Yong said. “Ecolab is committed to helping companies like Chandra Asri achieve their operational efficiency and sustainability goals. Harnessing 3D TRASAR for water management will help reduce costs and improve efficiency and sustainability.”

Complete solution

At Chandra Asri’s Cilegon plant, five 3D TRASAR systems are fitted to the facility’s cooling towers and dilution steam generation system to manage water quality to desired standards. In cooling towers, the technology continuously ensures proper cycle concentration, achieving the best use of water. When used in boilers and heat exchangers, 3D TRASAR technologies can reduce the potential of corrosion and deposit buildup and help maintain high energy efficiency and asset integrity.

Erwin Ciputra, president director and CEO at Chandra Asri, said Ecolab’s 3D TRASAR helped the company in its ongoing goal to drive continuous improvement.

“We are pleased to continue growing our partnership with Ecolab, to implement state-of-the-art and market leading technological advancements to improve the sustainability and performance of our operations," Ciputra said. "Prior to installing 3D TRASAR our engineers were conducting regular tests manually by taking water samples and having them analyzed. Now we can do all that measurement remotely, and our engineers can get automatic alerts if changes in the water system exceed or fall below predetermined limits. This allows us to improve the productivity and efficiency of our plant operations, to optimize our water footprint sustainably, and to digitize our operations as part of our strategic Digital Transformation Program. We will also look to extend the learnings and technology to our second petrochemical complex that we will be constructing in due course.”

Real-time remote monitoring and controlling

Nalco Water’s 3D TRASAR controllers and sensors, connected through Ecolab's Refined Knowledge platform, deliver real-time data through intuitive online dashboards, allowing Chandra Asri to gain unparalleled visibility into their operations and quickly act to mitigate potential issues. Measurements recorded by the system include pH level, oxidation reduction, conductivity and more. In addition to reporting the measurements of key metrics in the water, 3D TRASAR can also make regular injections of chemicals into the system to ensure levels stay within expected parameters.

Following the successful use of 3D TRASAR technology at Chandra Asri’s Cilegon plant, the company has now extended it to a second facility at Serang, also in Banten.