Grant: Applied Research and Development Grants - Level 2

Effective equipment optimization protects industry's investments through minimizing downtime, extending equipment life, reducing energy and optimizing performance. In the age of automation and smart technology, the key goal should be designing the next generation of predictive monitoring systems, which can recommend substantial improvements of the existing process equipment through remotely analyzing the data for current performance.LeapFrog Energy Technologies Inc. is an Ontario company that has completed more than 1500 industrial energy and water efficiency audits of manufacturing and mining sectors and underlying process equipment including air compressors, fans and blowers, pumps and industrial refrigeration. Recognizing that customer's energy consumption is not homogeneous, LeapFrog Energy moved to developing simple algorithms to target specific customers for energy efficiency and demand response programs. Lambton College's Lambton Energy Research Centre through this applied research project is collaborating with Leapfrog to develop an automated integrated solution of gathering and analyzing instrumentation data, data cleansing and organization, pattern recognition, prediction and recommendations, and target process equipment including pumps, compressed air systems, fans and blowers, and industrial chillers. The driving factors for this system are cost reduction through energy efficiency, reliability improvements and GHG reduction. The results of the project will provide economic growth, exporting opportunities, job creation and global competitiveness. Canada will also benefit from energy and GHG reduction.