January 20th 2025
A message from our CEO:
2024 review and look ahead to 2025
As things settle down in the new year and we look ahead to our 2025 targets, I thought I would take a look back at the achievements and milestones of TSC in 2024 and our hopes for where we’ll be in another year’s time.
2024 saw TSC wholeheartedly embrace sustainability, net-zero, energy transition, renewable energy (whatever your preferred buzzword). The majority of our business over the last 40 years or so has been in oil and gas, and while there is still a lot of work in that sector, there is the obvious fact that fossil fuels will not and can not last forever. We have equivocated somewhat over the last 2-3 years on where we should focus our attention; chemical engineers can be very cynical when it comes to the renewables world, we are trained to understand both thermodynamics and economics. This can lead to a lot of “it’ll never work”. Carbon capture is a prime example; where it is very obvious to many of us that there must be a paradigm shift in energy economics for this technology to ever make sense. Hydrogen as “green” energy storage is another example, thermodynamically and economically it doesn’t make much sense at the moment.
That said, both of these things can make sense in certain circumstances, and green hydrogen in particular can make a lot of sense right now as a replacement for grey hydrogen (from natural gas) in industrial feedstocks, of which there is a vast amount of existing requirement that will eventually need replacing. Combine an electrolyser plant with a local source of renewable energy and you can have a solution that makes both environmental and economic sense.
So this year we decided it was high time to build capability of both these things in our simulation engine and create some tangible products. There has been a lot of demand from education for something to train the engineers of the future in how these things actually work. For hydrogen, this included creating a dynamic high-fidelity model of an electrolyser that could cope with the entire performance envelope. We used our expertise and experience to create the mathematical model, and then incorporated it into a multi-electrolyser simulation of a full green hydrogen plant and built a 3D virtual plant linked to it. Launched towards the end of the year, this simulation has already piqued a lot of interest.
2024 also saw TSC create a suite of other simulation models in the net-zero sphere. These included flue gas carbon capture, CO2 compressor, hydroelectric plant, MSF desalination, with SAF and biogas plants in development.
TSC has been creating virtual control rooms (VCRs) for about 2 decades now, and combined with 3D interactive virtual plant model, they make an extremely effective and immersive training solution for both education and industry. We delivered 3 full hardware and software solutions in 2024, all extremely well received by the clients, with a similar number expected for 2025.
TSC delivered numerous customised client projects in 2024. This included several engineering studies for dynamic response of various systems, site-specific operator training simulators, custom interactive plant, plus maintenance and updates on systems delivered over at least the last 15 years. The longevity and maintainability of our custom systems is a source of pride, plus the fact we maintain such excellent relationships with past customers.
On the personnel side, we continued with our long-term commitment to supporting training for chemical engineers and took on 2 placement ChemEng students again for the 24-25 year. This year for the first time we also took on a 3D developer placement student into our 3D/virtual plant team. We also added 2 new permanent members of staff. We had an exciting new addition to the TSC family when one of our simulation engineers gave birth to a very cute little boy. With two engineer parents, I’m confident that he’ll be mastering our simulation models any time soon!
Looking forward to 2025, we’re planning on expanding the renewables range further. We’re also working on some exciting AI developments – watch this space! There will be more dedicated interactive plant developments, especially focussed on improving safety training. And we will keep delivering successful client projects – custom OTSs, engineering studies, and VCRs.
Looking forward to a busy 2025!
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