Empowering Sustainability with Solar

UEENEEK145A Assessment Walkthrough

Estimated read time: 1:20

    Summary

    In this detailed walkthrough, EIM Training guides learners through the assessment process for UEENEEK145A, a practical scenario focusing on utilizing solar power for small measuring devices in a process plant. The context is framed around a company's initiative to become environmentally sustainable by employing solar panels. Learners are instructed to create reports and analyses on material requirements, step-by-step implementation, and potential of various workshop instruments to run on solar power. Additionally, they must consider environmental and safety aspects, and provide suggestions and targets for further solar power implementation. This assessment fosters practical understanding of integrating renewable energy solutions in industrial settings.

      Highlights

      • Learn how to harness solar power for instrument operation with simple steps. ☀️
      • Master the art of writing insightful technical reports through practical scenarios. 📝
      • Discover the importance of isolation and testing in solar panel setup. ⚡

      Key Takeaways

      • Renewable energy can effectively power small instruments in remote locations. 🌞
      • Proper assessment of voltage requirements is crucial for solar integration. 📏
      • Hands-on experience with solar panels enhances technical skills and sustainability. 🔧

      Overview

      The video, created by EIM Training, begins by walking learners through the UEENEEK145A assessment, where they explore setting up solar panels to power small measuring devices in a process plant. Clear instructions are given to complete a comprehensive report detailing material and resource needs, step-by-step setup instructions, and the evaluation of which instruments can run on solar power.

        Throughout the assessment, learners are engaged with practical demonstrations of solar panel setups, measuring voltage outputs, and connecting instruments. The video emphasizes the importance of safety, accuracy, and environmental consideration in professional settings, teaching learners how to efficiently integrate green technology into their work practices.

          Finally, learners are encouraged to think critically by suggesting improvements in solar panel usage and setting achievable targets for implementing solar power solutions in various scenarios, such as remote process plants. This structured approach not only enhances technical proficiency but also promotes environmental consciousness in industrial applications.

            Chapters

            • 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction to Assessment This chapter introduces the assessment for the course UE NE K145A. It guides learners to access the assessment section, specifically Assessment 2, within their to-do list for the K145A unit. Upon accessing, learners are directed to a page containing general information about the assessment. The chapter aims to orient learners with the necessary steps to locate and initiate the assessment process.
            • 00:30 - 01:00: Assessment Scenario Overview The chapter 'Assessment Scenario Overview' presents a scenario where the reader is placed in the role of a technician working in a process plant. The company is aiming to improve its environmental sustainability, led by the boss, Daniel. An initiative is introduced to employ solar power to energize small measuring devices, like thermocouples, as a step towards this goal.
            • 01:00 - 01:30: Solar Panel Evaluation and Usage In this chapter, Daniel has acquired some secondhand power attack 12 volt and 10 volt solar panels, one of which has been purchased for assessment. The goal is to evaluate the potential of these solar panels for a specific application. The process involves isolating a solar panel and using a multimeter to test its voltage. If the results are within the acceptable range, the solar panel will be connected to the device for application. This chapter focuses on understanding the feasibility of utilizing solar panels in the proposed setup.
            • 01:30 - 03:00: Material and Resource Requirements for Task The chapter discusses the use of solar power to operate small instruments. A specific example given is a 12 volt, 10 watt solar panel, which, though not highly powerful, aligns with the voltage requirements of many instrumentation devices. The text further instructs on task requirements, specifically directing readers to page five. Part 'a' of the task requires a brief report covering three key details related to a given scenario.
            • 03:00 - 06:30: Detailed Step-by-Step Guide The chapter titled "Detailed Step-by-Step Guide" provides a comprehensive overview of the preparation and execution of tasks. It emphasizes discussing the material and resource list with a trainer and presents a detailed step-by-step guide to ensure efficient and effective work. The chapter also includes an assessment of workshop instruments that could theoretically be powered by proposed solar panels.
            • 06:30 - 09:30: Instrument Compatibility Assessment This chapter provides a guide on conducting an instrument compatibility assessment. It begins by highlighting the necessary application and equipment involved, such as the need for basic hand tools and thermocouples in a workshop setting. The chapter further discusses the importance of isolation and suggests using a DC isolator or a circuit as a means of achieving this.
            • 09:30 - 17:30: Final Report and Observations The chapter titled "Final Report and Observations" discusses the setup of a temperature transmitter. The description includes a temperature transmitter that consists of a small plug, often referred to as a hockey puck, which fits into a specific device setup. Moreover, the necessity of a power source is highlighted, specifically a 12-volt solar panel, alongside terminal connections required to wire the entire setup. The chapter seemingly focuses on the practical aspects and components needed to assemble a temperature measurement system efficiently.
            • 17:30 - 22:00: Student Declaration and Next Steps The chapter discusses the use of a multimeter for measuring voltage or milliamps to ensure the correct operation of a temperature transmitter. It highlights the importance of referencing the specific manual or specification sheet for accurate assessment and mentions a specific model, rtt15 t1bnan, as an example.

            UEENEEK145A Assessment Walkthrough Transcription

            • 00:00 - 00:30 hello and welcome to the unh ue ne k145a the assessment to the practical scenario so please go ahead go to your to-do section and open up the assessment 2 of the k145a unit once you found it you should end up on this page here which is some general information about the assessment let's go ahead page 3 we got our learner
            • 00:30 - 01:00 guide as usual and this time we also have a job safety environmental analysis forum page four is our scenario so let's read through this one together you're a technician working in a process plant your boss daniel has decided that the company needs to become more environmentally sustainable daniel is very interested in the prospect of using solar power in order to power small measuring devices like thermocouples
            • 01:00 - 01:30 daniel has saw us some secondhand power attack 12 volt 10 volt solar panels and has purchased one for you to assess the potential of harnessing solar power for his proposed application in order to implement and monitor this you will need to first isolate the solar panel and test the voltage with a multimeter assuming the results are within the range to be used with the instrument isolated solar panel and wire to the device so the idea here is to see if we can use
            • 01:30 - 02:00 solar power to power up small instruments you really get a bit of a hint it's a 12 volt 10 watt panel which is not as much however a lot of instrumentation devices do run around that voltage let's have a look at the next page what is required page five part a it says write a brief report detailing the following things in relation to the task set in the scenario three things we're looking at here first
            • 02:00 - 02:30 material and resource list of what you will need discuss this with your trainer second is a detailed step-by-step guide of how you will carry the work out to ensure you be working efficiently and effectively and third assess what instrument in the workshop would theoretically be capable of running of the proposed solar panels please type your report below you have a function down here where you can type in your answer
            • 02:30 - 03:00 to be able to answer those three parts we're gonna go and have a look at the application okay first up we're gonna look at the material and resources required so if you're in your workshop you can imagine you would need some basic hand tools we would need a thermocouple they both are thermocouples here we need a means of isolating so either dc isolator in my case i have a circuit
            • 03:00 - 03:30 breaker in here we need a temperature transmitter which usually looks something like this and the actual transmitter part would be this little hockey plug here which happens to sit inside of there for simplicity we have taken them out you will need a solar panel so we have our power tag 12 volt solar panel and you would need some sort of terminal connections to wire everything up including a
            • 03:30 - 04:00 multimeter to measure voltage or perhaps milliamps to see if the transmitter is operating correctly in regards to the manuals we need to find the manual of our temperature transmitter in this case we have model rtt15 t1bnan and we would also need the specification sheet or the manual
            • 04:00 - 04:30 of the solar panel this is important so we can match the voltage requirements of our temperature transmitters against the voltage output of the solar panel so if we turn our solar panel around we are able to see a few values here we have maximum power pmax is a 10 watt we mp is 17.4 we oc is 21.8
            • 04:30 - 05:00 so this solar panel should operate around 12 volts if in fuson around 17.4 we have nothing connected voc at 21.8 at standard test condition at about 1000 watts per square meter irradiance our temperature transmitter on the other hand we can see one second
            • 05:00 - 05:30 supply voltage is 8 to 30 volts dc so the eight voice is our lift of voltage as the minimum voltage required for the transmitter to operate and for it to be able to output the 20 milliamps required for upper range value sometimes it might even be 21 if you have a face safe on the higher milliamp output so these are all manuals required probably including the
            • 05:30 - 06:00 specification of your dc isolator to ensuring that voltage and current will be able to be switched off safely the second step is asking for a detailed step-by-step guide of how you will carry the workout to ensure you be working efficiently and effectively so our first thing we want to do is ensuring that the solar panel can output the required voltage in our case a minimum of 8 volts
            • 06:00 - 06:30 safely somewhere around 12 volts i haven't got much luck with the sun today so i'm cheating a little bit with a small dc power supply down here so first thing you wanna is we take a multimeter and we measure the voltage output of the solar panel if you were at the perfect angle and full sun you should read voc the 21 volts next up would be
            • 06:30 - 07:00 um isolation of the solar panel towards the transmitter so we want to wire the solar panel in this case we're assuming it's coming out from here into a means of isolation in this case my circuit breaker here or in dc isolator so you can safely isolate from the isolator we want to go and buy a two watts of a transmitter so what this assessment is
            • 07:00 - 07:30 not about is how each of the appliances work this one is just assessing if we can actually power up transmitters with that solar panel so i've been applying 12 volts here to the hockey puck transmitter on the sensor side of the transmitter i have connected a type k thermocouple and i also have connected a multimeter to measure milliamps so right now it's measuring 6.91
            • 07:30 - 08:00 milliamps i have set up this transmitter to measure between 0 and 100 degrees and one way of seeing if the transmitter is actually powered up is easiest one is measure the voltage across the terminal to see if you have sufficient voltage or another one if the setup is already done like in my case i can confirm that it's working because i have a milliamp output if the transmitter wouldn't have power i
            • 08:00 - 08:30 would have 0 milliamps on here so just for understanding i have a bit of hot water in here as soon as i put my thermocouple in my mini milliamps will raise if there would be 100 degrees water it would go all the way up to 20 milliamps so that's another way of seeing that the transmitter works this is a particular important if you are worried that you do not have enough voltage because if we don't have a minimum lift
            • 08:30 - 09:00 of voltage for the hakipak transmitter then it won't be able to output the full 20 milliamps range which is required in my case at 100 degrees or whatever your upper range value might be so for recap we wire the solar panel to an dc isolator or circuit breaker from there we wire it into the transmitter power supply side on the input side of the transmitter the
            • 09:00 - 09:30 sensor set we have wired a thermocouple this could very likely be an rtd but in this scenario you'll be talking about powering thermocouples with a transmitter and then you want to measure the voltages and the current to make sure everything is working correctly which it is in our case um also importantly is that you try to
            • 09:30 - 10:00 keep everything neat and tidy do not do wastes of material or resources and once you confirm that the solar panel is indeed able to power up the transmitter like we've just did here you want to pack up and clean up safely ensuring manual handling procedures and any environmental procedures like recycling or whatnot
            • 10:00 - 10:30 our third part of this report is to assess what instruments in the workshop would theoretically be capable of running off the proposed solar panel so if you happen to be in a workshop at your company right now feel free to go around and have a look at the voltage requirements of the instruments laying around there so i'm just going to go ahead and go over to my workshop and let's have a look what we got here
            • 10:30 - 11:00 so down here we have a pressure transmitter which has a voltage range also around 3 to 40 volts so he would be if you're ready to be capable of being powered up on the other hand i got an ultrasonic transmitter from vega here i'm not sure if you can see this we have a supply of 16 to 36 volts dc so 16 volts compared to our vmp of i believe it was around 17
            • 11:00 - 11:30 could become a bit risky especially if you have cloudy days or in the early morning when the sun is just coming up or when she goes down so in this example i would probably not safely say that we can power this transmitter during the day an easy solution is to get a second solar panel wired in series to raise the voltage however you gotta do some calculations to make sure that
            • 11:30 - 12:00 you do not exceed in our case the 36 volts dc apart from this i have a coriolis flow meter here uh he actually requires 240 volts so this wouldn't be able to be run down here we got a vortex flow transmitter from foxboro if i remember right he should also be able to be run
            • 12:00 - 12:30 so basically said any instruments which are within the voltage range of your solar panel should be theoretically be able to be powered up most likely if you have two wire transmitters which means that power supply and signal are on the same two wires which is a very common setup most of them should be able to be run on 12 volts so if you're looking around your
            • 12:30 - 13:00 workshop or if you can think of any instruments pretty much any two wired instruments should be able to be run you even find plcs with a 12 volt input pid controllers as well they might have a 12 volt if for example you do not get the right voltage you can increase the voltage by wiring the solar panels in series and putting in extra protection and a small
            • 13:00 - 13:30 dc-dc transformer to regulate the output of the panel to suit your transmitters okay now that you have seen the application you should be able to complete page five remember that this is a theoretical scenario so for example step one material resource list uh you do not need to go and find the actual manual
            • 13:30 - 14:00 and temi lingo whatsoever so this is just theoretical so you just want to say you need the manual of the solar panel and the manual of the temperature transmitter and so on please go ahead and also fill in the step-by-step guide and how you will carry out the work like i have explained just earlier and then assess what instruments in the workshop would be capable of running so you can use the examples you just saw in my video or if you happen to be in your own
            • 14:00 - 14:30 workshop or you remember parts of your workshop feel free to include anything you seem necessary or theoretically capable being powered by the instrument let's go to page six and have a look here is required at jse a it says completed jca which you can find in the resource section for the proposed job
            • 14:30 - 15:00 so just earlier you made a step-by-step guide this is also going to be your chop steps in your jca so you just want to go around and consider each step first one would be gathering materials and tools then you go and check isolation of the solar panel and so on like i have explained it you want to include any hazards and any risk control
            • 15:00 - 15:30 measures you deem necessary to be able to safely work and basically do these steps i have outlined in the video now that you have completed the jca please upload it in the upload function just below here on page seven all you have to do is scroll down and there will be a student signature
            • 15:30 - 16:00 function here just click on the click design and apply your signature afterwards hit apply on page eight we now are doing another report about our observations so it says create a report for daniel based of your observations be sure to include first the observations make note of any anomalies any problems you encountered and the
            • 16:00 - 16:30 solution to those problems so in the practical just so earlier one of the problems i think we all agree on is that if the sun goes down there will be not enough power so you would have problems for a nighttime operation another problem could be in the early mornings or in the late afternoons where the sun is not quite up yet you might not reach the
            • 16:30 - 17:00 minimum liftoff voltage any solutions to those problems or for night time operation or a cloudy day operation or just a backup really we need to install a battery storage system so adding batteries to the system would allow for that nighttime operation that could be one of your solutions second step is based off your observations and experience make a suggestion for how solar panels might be
            • 17:00 - 17:30 better implemented so that's quite open if you can think of a scenario you want to outline for free to do so however i will give you an example of what we're looking for here let's say an example looking at the gas oil separation plan top right corner here we have a proposed temperature transmitter location so we could assume that this separation plan is somewhere in a remote area and we're going to try to
            • 17:30 - 18:00 find a solution around this so we're being in the remote area you most likely don't have um permanent crit supply so it sort of makes sense to install solar there to power up small instruments if that's all what is required so suggestions would be you need some sort of stand for the solar panels you can't just chuck them on the ground so they need to be mounted on a frame
            • 18:00 - 18:30 and most likely you want to be having a correct tilt angle depending on your latitude and you want to orient it towards north so this is something you need to consider then we talked that he said that we need a battery backup you can't just put the batteries out in the open you need to create build a small shed or a small enclosure where you can put in the batteries and
            • 18:30 - 19:00 all the electrical components so that's something you want to consider as well then you saw that we looked at a relatively small solar panel which is not very common in the industry usually you have some bigger normal size 2 meters solar panels with somewhat like 300 watts output and usually about 45 volts so you can say that you want to have a
            • 19:00 - 19:30 few of them enough to charge the battery back up during the day so it can last for perhaps up to three days uh depending on the requirement apart from this make sure that you put in all your isolators another thing is we haven't talked about the charge controller for the batteries yet so you most likely need to purchase an mppt at least a maximum power point tracker
            • 19:30 - 20:00 for the panel and the battery charge controller they often come in the same device however this needs to be bought about so as i said feel free to come up with your own ideas anything you can think of which i haven't mentioned you can put this in here part three advice daniel and whether or not you believe utilizing solar panels to power small instrument is a viable energy solution in my opinion and us can be different solar power is great to power up small
            • 20:00 - 20:30 instruments especially if it is really expensive running a main supply there part four set some targets you believe are accomplishable with proper utilization of solar power so considering that smell a small gas or a separation plan we had here you could come up with an idea saying that you want to roll out that idea on one of the remote stations and then you want to
            • 20:30 - 21:00 monitor it for a month or two months make sure everything is working as it should be and if all your targets have been achieved during the period you can then roll it out to different remote stations but again you can come up with different targets here so think about those four steps and write your answer here in the answer box on page nine is our last page we have a
            • 21:00 - 21:30 student declaration so please read through all of this scroll down and click to sign do your signature and hit apply and also provide with the day do not click next on the calendar click right next to the calendar and the today's date is highlighted all right so feel free to start working on this assessment i hope that helped you and if you have any questions you can always contact your trainer or call the head office
            • 21:30 - 22:00 to get in contact with one of your trainer heavy studies