Question 1

What is Thermodynamic Visibility™?

Accepted Answer

Question 2

Why isn't conventional industrial reporting sufficient?

Accepted Answer

Conventional reporting describes outcomes — production, availability, emissions volumes, financial performance. It does not describe the thermodynamic behaviour producing those outcomes. Every boardroom directive (improve heat rate, reduce fuel intensity, lower emissions) is governed by mechanisms that conventional reporting leaves invisible.

Question 3

What does ControlAlign™ actually make visible?

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The asset's thermal-state behaviour, radiative coupling, combustion completeness, conversion losses, and operational drift from its own demonstrated optimum — reconstructed deterministically from the historian record the plant already produces.

Question 4

How does Thermodynamic Visibility translate into management execution?

Accepted Answer

Board directives → thermodynamic visibility → operational understanding → optimization → measured improvement. ControlAlign is the bridge between strategic objectives and the operational mechanisms that determine whether they are actually achieved.

Question 5

Is ControlAlign a control system, an APC overlay, or industrial AI?

Accepted Answer

None of those. ControlAlign is a thermodynamic interpretation architecture — not a control system, not an optimization engine, not an industrial AI platform, and not a dashboarding product. It has no control authority, no write path, and no model-driven inference.

Question 6

How was ControlAlign discovered?

Accepted Answer

ControlAlign did not begin as a software project. It emerged from years of industrial combustion enhancement work — particularly Industrial Oxyhydrogen deployments across biomass-fired steam boilers — where performance outcomes appeared disproportionate to the direct energy contribution of the injected gas. Investigation into radical reaction chemistry, flame emissivity, radiative heat transfer, combustion completeness, and energy conversion effectiveness revealed a thermodynamic performance layer that was rarely observed directly. ControlAlign was developed to make that layer visible.

Question 7

Why is efficiency fundamentally a thermodynamic problem?

Accepted Answer

Every industrial facility converts energy. The quality of that conversion determines fuel intensity, heat rate, emissions, reliability, asset performance and operating cost. Optimising any of these without visibility into the underlying conversion behaviour reduces to trial-and-error inside the control system.

Question 8

Which industrial sectors does the architecture apply to?

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Question 9

What is YBG Global?

Accepted Answer

Question 10

What does the architecture actually interpret?

Accepted Answer

Thermodynamic-state behaviour: how a thermal process system is performing relative to the operating envelope it has already demonstrated. The interpretation layer reconstructs that envelope from native historian data and continuously locates current operation within it.

Question 11

How is thermodynamic-state behaviour reconstructed?

Accepted Answer

From the asset's own historian — read-only — at native resolution. The framework derives a deterministic reference state across load bands, fuel variability, ambient conditions, and operator practices. No probabilistic inference, no model retraining.

Question 12

What is operational thermodynamic drift?

Accepted Answer

The measurable, sustained deviation of a thermal process environment from its own best demonstrated thermodynamic state. Drift is interpreted, not predicted — and traced back to specific operating regions and process couplings.

Question 13

Is this a consultancy, an APC product, or a SaaS analytics tool?

Accepted Answer

None of those. The architecture operates as an interpretation layer above conventional control, delivered through ControlAlign™. No control authority, no model-driven inference, no consultancy retainer.

Question 14

How does LNG interpretation differ from thermal power?

Accepted Answer

Same deterministic framework, different operating envelope. LNG interpretation reconstructs cryogenic and liquefaction envelopes — compressor coupling, refrigerant-loop effectiveness, parasitic-load topology — rather than steam-cycle thermal state.

Question 15

How does CCS create parasitic thermodynamic load?

Accepted Answer

Capture loops impose continuous solvent regeneration heat and auxiliary electrical load on the host process. The interpretation layer quantifies that parasitic envelope deterministically, so capture penalty is measured against the host asset's own demonstrated thermodynamic state rather than vendor-curve assumptions.

Question 16

Does the same framework genuinely cover all of these sectors?

Accepted Answer

Yes. The interpretive methodology is invariant. What changes per sector is the envelope being reconstructed, not the framework reconstructing it.

Question 17

Is the methodology deterministic?

Accepted Answer

Yes. The same operating data, evaluated through the same framework, always yields the same interpretive result. Every conclusion is reproducible and engineering-reviewable.

Question 18

How are operational conclusions derived?

Accepted Answer

From the asset's own historian, against its own best demonstrated thermodynamic state. No external benchmarks, no industry averages, no third-party datasets are used at any stage.

Question 19

What is the Operational Thermodynamics Methodology?

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Question 20

Is the doctrine open-access?

Accepted Answer

Question 21

Does YBG replace APC or DCS systems?

Accepted Answer

No. The interpretation layer sits above conventional control architecture. It has no control authority, does not write to any actuator, control loop, or safety layer, and does not displace existing APC or DCS investments.

Question 22

How does the interpretation layer integrate operationally?

Accepted Answer

Read-only ingestion from the existing process historian (PI / OSIsoft, AVEVA, GE Proficy and equivalents). The output is interpretive — directed at operations, engineering, and governance functions — not into the control stack.

Question 23

Are outputs audit-grade?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Every interpretation is traceable to source historian tags and a versioned reference state. Methodology revisions are versioned. The output structure is designed for engineering committee and audit review.

Question 24

How is operating data protected?

Accepted Answer

Processed in an isolated environment, used solely to produce the asset-specific interpretation. Not shared, not used to train models, not benchmarked against other operators. Mutual NDA — including the operator's standard format — is supported.

Question 25

Can outputs support carbon reporting?

Accepted Answer

Question 26

Does YBG certify carbon credits?

Accepted Answer

No. YBG provides the measurement and interpretation layer. Outputs may support compliance reporting or credit pathways operated by accredited verifiers, where applicable frameworks exist.

Question 27

How is the architecture evaluated on a specific asset?

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Question 28

What is the Enterprise Engagement Pathway?

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Question 29

How is deployment handled across a multi-asset portfolio?

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Fleet- and infrastructure-scale deployment is a primary design requirement. The same deterministic framework is applied across asset classes — thermal power blocks, LNG trains, CCS capture loops, refining heat networks, fired systems — without per-asset model tuning.

Question 30

How long does an initial assessment take?

Accepted Answer

Typically 24–48 hours from receipt of a complete historian export. No site visit required. Timing depends on data completeness and the number of operating envelopes covered.

Question 31

Who do I contact?

Accepted Answer

YBG Global — FAQ