Cryogenic & ASU Specific Power Optimization
The air separation unit (ASU) or other cryogenic plant is running, but power use, recovery, or production rate may have moved away from a comparable stable period. We compare operating history at similar rates, ambient conditions, and product mix, document data limitations, and agree how to measure any proposed change.
inquiries@cryobrothers.com. Thirty minutes, no charge. You leave knowing whether we can help and what a scoped engagement would look like.
Read about our cryogenic operating experience or discuss your plant and the scope of a review.
We get called when
- Specific power drifting up over quarters
- Recovery below what the design promised
- Production rate capped, or turndown costing a restart, with no established constraint
- Two shifts running the same facility differently
- Power cost climbing, with curtailment or demand-response events that were never measured in lost product
What you get
- A documented comparison using your operating history, with data gaps identified
- Setpoint and control strategy recommendations
- Ranked action list with supporting measurements and evidence limits
- Verification pass after implementation
Engagement details
How the review works
Compare performance under like operating conditions.
Agree what to measure
Define the operating question and measures with your team, using the units your plant already reports.
Find the gap
Compare current operation with suitable historical periods. Separate measured differences, supported explanations, and gaps in the evidence.
Review the result of each change
Your team implements agreed changes through its own procedures. We compare the results with the agreed measures and record what changed.
Where this comes up
Related industries and processes.
How the work is measured
Measures used to assess the work.
Specific power, or specific energy per unit of liquid, at a given rate, measured against the best sustained window in your own history.
The spread between your good days and your average days, tracked across the same period.
A trend attached to each change, showing what it moved and what it did not.
Why consider a review
A gradual performance loss may be easy to miss in daily production reports.
Power use, production rate, and recovery need to be read together. Comparing like operating periods helps distinguish a performance change from a change in demand or operating conditions.
Your team can own this work when it has time to compare records and review changes. We provide dedicated analysis and a written action list alongside normal plant responsibilities.
inquiries@cryobrothers.com. Thirty minutes, no charge. You leave knowing whether we can help and what a scoped engagement would look like.
Common questions
Questions we get before the first call.
Not on the list? Email inquiries@cryobrothers.com and ask it directly.
How do you know what best looks like for our facility?
We look in your own history for a comparable best — like rate, like ambient, like product mix. If the historian has that window, we identify it and quantify the gap. If it does not, we say so rather than invent a target. We do not import a number from a brochure.
We were optimized once already.
A previous review is useful context. We compare its targets and assumptions with current conditions to see whether performance has changed, the operating requirements have changed, or both.
What if the answer is capital?
If the evidence points to an equipment or process constraint, we document it and the remaining uncertainty. Your team decides whether further equipment work or investment is justified.
Will you be changing our setpoints?
Recommendations go through the plant's management of change. We do not operate the plant or move setpoints. We recommend the move, one meaningful change at a time, with operations agreeing to each. Any faster and you cannot tell which change did the work.
How do you find an ASU specific-power baseline without a third-party benchmark?
We do not import a kWh/Nm3 from a paper or a vendor. We look in your historian for a like-for-like window. If the data supports one, we identify it and quantify the gap to it. If it does not, we say so.
We curtail for power price or demand response. Can you measure what it costs?
Yes, where the records allow. We compare power use, production, and liquid inventory across each curtailment or demand-response event and the recovery after it, and quantify what the event cost in product and restart time. The decision on when to curtail stays with your team.