How much energy are your drives saving?
The energy efficiency calculator is the latest in a comprehensive range of tools that enables ABB customers to take maximum advantage of the huge energy savings to be made by using ABB variable speed drives to control the speed of industrial motors and machines.
The built-in calculators continuously measure in kilowatt-hours and megawatt-hours precisely how much energy the drive has consumed since installation and – more importantly – how much energy the drive has saved in relation to the preceding method of flow control.
Other key parameters measured include the value of the saving in the local currency and at the local energy tariff, as well as the reduction in carbon dioxide emissions that the energy savings have achieved.
The data is clearly displayed on the drive control panel and is crucial to optimizing drive and process performance as well as to monitoring energy consumption, operating costs and the drive’s return on investment.
The built-in calculators are included in all new ABB standard and industrial drives as of the beginning of 2009. They are the latest addition to a comprehensive portfolio of ABB tools and services that enable customers to increase their energy savings in drives applications.
The portfolio ranges from in-depth energy audits at customer sites to tools like PumpSave and FanSave, which compare how much energy and money can be saved with ABB variable speed drives in contrast to conventional methods of fan and pump control. PumpSave and FanSave can be downloaded free from ABB's website.
In pump and fan applications ABB drives reduce energy consumption by between 30 and 50 percent, even as much as 80 percent, compared to conventional fixed-speed methods of flow control. They do this by continuously adjusting at phenomenally high speed the velocity of the motor in response to sudden changes in load.
ABB’s installed base of low voltage AC drives is the largest in the world and has already saved an estimated 170 terawatt-hours of electric power. This is enough to meet the annual needs of 42 million households in the European Union and reduce global CO2 emissions by some 140 million tons a year, equivalent to the yearly emissions of more than 35 million cars.
ABB solution greens global shipping
The ABB solution was developed for a ro-ro (roll on-roll off) terminal at the Swedish port of Gothenburg in 2000 and was the first in the world to provide ships with high voltage electric power delivered by cable from onshore during their time in port.
The ABB solution helped the Port of Gothenburg win two environmental awards, the 2008 Clean Seas Award given by Lloyd's List and the 2004 Clean Marine Award given by the European Union.
The process provides a ship at berth with shore-side electrical power when its main and auxiliary engines are turned off. In this way, its equipment, refrigeration, cooling, heating and lighting can receive continuous electrical power in loading and unloading.
In total, Sweden's shore-to-ship electrical connections - at Gothenburg, Stockholm, Helsingborg and Pitea - save about 1,900 tonnes of fuel each year and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 6,000 metric tons, according to the Swedish Environmental Research Institute (IVL).
Ships plug into an onshore grid, in contrast to the previous method in which ships used their auxiliary diesel engines to generate electricity in port, consuming large volumes of fuel and emitting high levels of greenhouse gases and noise.
The Gothenburg installation has been so successful that an additional three terminals at the port have since been equipped with the ABB solution, helping the port authority to become the international benchmark for shore-to-ship power supply.
Providing shore-side electrical power is also known as "cold ironing," refering to a time when ships had coal-fired iron engines. Ships docked in port, turned off the engines and let them go cold, hence the term.
"Shore-side electricity has a large potential to reduce the impact from shipping on health and on the enviironment," IVL research Erik Fridell told a conference on shore connections at Northern Maritime University in May 2009. "The main advantage is the reduction in emissions of toxic gases in port cities."
Harbor facilities around the world have begun to take a closer look at shore-to-ship connections as a means to reduce emissions from ships in port and improve air quality in surrounding communities. Shore connections are now available at ports in the United States, including Los Angeles, Long Beach, San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle and Juneau, in Canada at Vancouver, and in Europe at ports in Germany, Sweden, Finland and Holland.
In the U.K. the port of Southhampton announced in July 2009 it will also consider implementing shore-to-ship electrical connections for cruise vessels in port.
In May 2009, European Commissioner for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Joe Borg told a conference of European cruise companies in Rome that shore connections is one of the policies being pushed by the EU as part of an Integrated Maritime Policy.
Compared to standard high-sulfur engine fuel, the ABB high voltage solution reduces carbon dioxide emissions by 50 percent and other greenhouse gases by up to 97 percent. The emission reduction is significant, even compared to the low-sulfur fuel that is set to become mandatory for ships visiting European ports in 2010.
If connected to a renewable energy source like wind, hydro or solar power – which the port of Gothenburg is considering - the solution has the potential to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions during ship stopovers.
Power from the grid, which is 50 Hz in most countries, is converted by an ABB frequency converter to the 60 Hz required by most vessels. The power is then transported by cable to a transformer where it is stepped down to 6.6 or 11 kV. A single cable delivers the power to the ship from a small power outlet at the berth.
Both the substation and transformer kiosk can be located at some distance from the berth where they do not interfere with terminal activities.
The products used in the solution – substation, transformers and frequency converters (also known as AC drives) – are core ABB technologies in which ABB is the global market leader.
Innovative software helps welding robots save materials and energy
Precise, clean, mass-produced welds are taken for granted by consumers of manufactured products, but they are not so easily achieved. Human welders draw on their experience, intuition and a trial-and-error to establish the right parameters for the job. Transferring this kind of skill to a robot is easier said than done, but it is exactly what ABB has achieved with the introduction of its robot welding simulation software, VirtualArc.
Robots have often been introduced into manufacturing plants to speed productivity and relieve workers of hazardous, strenuous or tediously repetitive tasks. The benefits have been many-fold, from improved health and safety to lower energy bills for operators. An additional contribution comes from robots’ unerring accuracy. Their ability to repeat tasks over and over, each time achieving the quality standards expected by customers, and ensuring that goods are finished correctly first time, with no costly repairs or wasted materials.
But robots can only get it right if they have been programmed correctly and that can be a time-consuming process. “Teaching” a robot to perform a arc-weld, for example, means providing it with the knowledge that comes from many years of human experience and the intuition that enables it to choose the appropriate process for a new task.
This in-depth understanding of the welding process can be acquired by trial and error. Indeed, most new welding parameters are established by experienced welders performing a series of test welds and adjusting parameters to hone the result, but this is a wasteful approach. The test welds use up materials, manpower and energy. They also tie up a robot that could be in productive use elsewhere.
To reduce the need for such wasteful tests, ABB designed its VirtualArc software. The program provides the unique ability to define the exact weld parameters required for an application and then test them, without any welds actually being carried out.
Many companies provide post-weld analysis software that allows operators to speed up the trial-and-error approach to establishing weld parameters, but ABB is the only company for offer software for pre-weld analysis.
The software uses a sophisticated simulator that incorporates information on the equipment available, such as the welding device, the power supply etc., and application data, such as the materials to be used, the plate thickness, the required joint configuration etc.
Using this information, the program can deliver a full set of weld parameters, along with a profile of the resulting weld. This enables the operator to assess the quality of the weld produced under a particular set of conditions in the space of a few minutes, a fraction of the time needed to perform a “real” test.
Depending on the results of the virtual test, the operator can adjust parameters such as weld speed, torch angle etc. and optimize for maximum productivity and minimum energy use, while maintaining the required quality of the weld and allowing the plant’s robots to continue with their work on other applications.
As a result of preweld analysis, operators can save materials and energy, and reduce the production of welding fumes.
A new wind for offshore farms
The 400-megawatt (MW) wind farm, located 130 kilometers from the coast in the North Sea, is expected to save carbon dioxide emissions of 1.5 million tons per year by avoiding the need for additional fossil-fuel generation.
ABB is connecting the park – the most remote wind farm in the world – using high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission technology. Although HVDC has been available for more than 50 years, ABB’s development of the technology to produce the related HVDC Light about 10 years ago provided the technological means to build wind parks far from the coast.
“The project is unique," said Karl-Heinz Lampe, Managing Director for E.ON Netz Offshore. “Politicians in Germany are following the project NORD E.ON 1 with special interest and it has also drawn considerable attention from abroad.”
Germany aims to generate 20 percent of its power from renewable sources by 2020, compared with about 14 percent in 2007. Wind power accounted for about 40 percent of Germany’s electricity from renewable sources last year, but with the best onshore locations already developed, the country’s utilities are turning to offshore sites.
The main attraction of going offshore is the enormous wind resource available. Average wind speeds can be 20 percent higher than on land, and the resulting energy yield from wind farms as much as 70 percent higher.
While three-phase alternating current (AC) links are a cost-effective way to connect small offshore wind farms near the coast to the electricity network, HVDC Light has emerged as the technology of choice for more distant offshore parks.
Power can be fully controlled using HVDC Light, so that the intermittent electricity supply from a wind farm cannot disrupt the grid. An HVDC Light transmission system can also be started from a powerless state, for example if the wind hasn’t been blowing at all, and very little electricity is lost during transmission, even over long distances.
The use of oil-free cables running underwater to the coast, then underground to a substation 75 kilometers inland, are further ways in which the transmission technology minimizes the environmental impact of the NORD E.ON project. The 80-turbine farm is scheduled to enter service in 2009.
Offshore wind-power capacity, though currently small, is growing faster than onshore capacity. The 20 countries that are members of IEA Wind, a branch of the International Energy Agency, increased offshore wind capacity by 26 percent in 2007 from 2006, compared with a 21-percent increase for onshore capacity.
ABB is the world's largest supplier of electrical products and services to wind turbine manufacturers, with a portfolio ranging from generators to compact substations to grid connections.
ABB (www.abb.com) is a leader in power and automation technologies that enable utility and industry customers to improve performance while lowering environmental impact. The ABB Group of companies operates in around 100 countries and employs about 120,000 people.