Emerson has helped design, equip and provide training tools for San Jacinto College’s new Center for Petrochemical, Energy, and Technology (CPET), designed to empower students of all levels with the skills and training needed to support careers in petrochemical and refining industries. The new, 151,000-square-foot complex is the largest petrochemical training facility along the Texas Gulf Coast.
The industry estimates it will need to replace as many as 40 percent of its current workers due to retirements over the next decade, according to the Texas Gulf Coast Community College Petrochemical Initiative. The CPET expands the college’s capabilities to develop and train for petrochemical manufacturing areas where a more skilled workforce is needed to operate in an environment that is transforming from reactive to technology-focused predictive and prescriptive approaches.
San Jacinto College serves approximately 45,000 students each semester and is a training hub to the largest petrochemical manufacturing complex in the United States, and second largest in the world (with 90 industries and 130 plants).
The CPET is supported and equipped by Emerson and local Impact Partner Puffer-Sweiven and features an 8,000-square-foot exterior glycol process unit to develop troubleshooting skills for students and incumbent workers. Additional features include a control room and labs with multiple DeltaV distributed control systems, Fisher control valves, Mimic simulation software, Rosemount magnetic and DP flow meters, and Micro Motion Coriolis flow and density meters.
The CPET also includes 16 of Emerson’s Performance Learning Platforms (PLP) — fully instrumented “mini-plants” that provide hands-on training and collaboration capabilities to upskill students not only on the fundamentals, but also on the latest automation technologies.
San Jacinto College is one of more than 350 institutions worldwide, from two-year technical community colleges to four-year university programs at the undergraduate and graduate levels, that Emerson has partnered with to find solutions to address the skills gap in digital automation technologies.