Open communications cut energy use in major plant
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CC-Link Partner Association product story
Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team
Mar 17, 2008
CC-Link is based on a twisted-pair cable, so installation is cheap, making it particularly attractive for networks that cover large areas.
BLP UK is the UK's largest volume manufacturer of MDF wrapped mouldings and membrane-pressed cabinet doors for the furniture manufacturing and related industries.
The market is fiercely price-competitive, so reducing operating costs is critical to its on-going success.
Engineering Manager Dave White explains the origins of the energy efficiency drive: "In a 24x7 manufacturing environment a lot of emphasis is put on maintaining production - keeping the machines going, the materials flowing, the goods going out the door".
"But a while ago I stepped back a bit and started to evaluate our systems from a wider perspective".
"Many of our major costs were pretty much fixed, but energy looked like it had potential to be better managed".
"Investigation showed the dust extraction system that served all three production buildings was energy hungry and had a rather simplistic control strategy".
"There was the best part of 1000kW of installed motor power and this basically ran constantly, eating power day and night".
"We had to devise a project strategy that let us improve the existing system while not compromising standards nor disrupting production".
"Effective dust extraction is critically important to our business for health and safety and maintaining product quality".
"Dave White began working on a solution based on a number of variable speed drives controlling fan motors around the system and ran trials in small areas of the production buildings".
"We saved GBP10,000 of energy expenditure in the first 12 months, which more than paid for the capital costs, so I was confident when I went back to the board suggesting that we implement the scheme across all three buildings".
As the installation grew and the number of drives increased, greater control was going to be required.
A simple yet powerful control architecture based on four supervisory PLCs and three HMIs for local control was devised.
Communications around the system is based on CC-link, an open field or device level network that provides high-speed deterministic communications, linking a wide range of automation technologies over a single cable.
CC-Link is based on a twisted-pair cable so installation is cheap, making it particularly attractive for networks that cover large areas.
Similarly it is easy to extend the network, so that a project like BLP's can be undertaken in stages to minimise disruption to production and to spread costs over a period of time.
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