AC drives up to 160 kW at huge Welsh Water project
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Control Techniques product story
Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team
Dec 19, 2001
Wales' largest ongoing civil engineering project, Cardiff's £185 million waste water treatment plant, features over 60 variable speed drives from Control Techniques
Wales' largest ongoing civil engineering project, Cardiff's ?185 million waste water treatment plant, features over 60 variable speed drives from Control Techniques, situated in some 20 intelligent motor control centre (MCCs) at six locations across the six acre site.
As the preferred drives supplier (up to 240 kW) to Dwr Cymru Welsh Water, Control Techniques has supplied a wide range of Unidrive 'universal' AC drives up to 160 kW for functions ranging from pumps and fans to conveyors and motorised valves.
All of the drives are fitted with special plug-in co-processors to facilitate communications with the controlling PCs and PLCs via a site-wide Profibus network.
Dwr Cymru Welsh Water signed a long-term framework procurement agreement with Control Techniques following an exhaustive selection process with all of the leading European drives suppliers who had to compete technically, on price, on product range, on availability, on compatibility with other preferred suppliers and on after sales support.
The agreement covers a variety of drives and, in particular, the VTC Unidrive range up to 250 kW, which has been designed to meet the special needs of the fans and pumps market.
The drive features dynamic voltage / frequency control which automatically optimises the voltage to the required load.
The drives have been supplied to Lloyd Morris Electrical of Wrexham, who were responsible for the design and manufacture of the Motor Control Centres and for the complete electrical installation, along with their sister company Merlin Systems who were the system integrators for the whole scheme.
With a total contract value estimated at ?185 million, the contract scope involves total control of some 280 drives across eight process areas.
These span the inlet works to the outfall and every process in between.
MCC manufacture and electrical installation alone, having a value in excess of ?6 million, made it essential that the right suppliers were chosen to meet the deadlines and budget targets.
The scheme has proceeded under a partnership basis with Hyder Consulting and the Cardiff Waste Water Partnership ( CWWP ) and has been successful in driving down costs whilst improving technical standards of operation.
"The key has been in extensive use of Profibus communications, " explains General Manager of Merlin Systems, Tim Hopkinson.
"Cabling has been kept to a minimum with all valves, instrumentation and 99% of the drives being on the Profibus network.
And the design of the 20 MCC's, which have been installed back-to-back using a central bus-bar system, has also cut down cabling and reduced the size of buildings, again reducing costs.
The PLC, SCADA and other software has been designed in a modular fashion using the principles of BSEN161131, so that it is a consistent design throughout the various process areas.
The site is huge - some 1.5 miles in length, with an estimated six acres of concrete water treatment tanks.
All field equipment, including drives, is terminated to local Profibus remote I/O modules, reducing installation and cabling costs.
A site-wide fibre optic network is used for high level networking.
The scheme provides complete traceability, with all actions being passed back via Profibus and the PLC networks to the SCADA system, where it displayed and archived.
The drives' kW, hours run, voltage, frequency and power factor are constantly monitored - and the system has the capability to identify out-of-norm conditions such as increasing currents to flag up conditions such as failing bearings before they become a problem, reducing downtime and maintenance costs.
Each Unidrive, which operates in open-loop mode, receives its run speed via Profibus from the PLC controlling that section of the scheme.
This is facilitated with the use of special plug-in UD73 modules.
When fully commissioned, the Dwr Cymru Welsh Water works will treat waste from homes and industry, serving around a million people in Cardiff and South-East Wales.
It will also be one of the largest treatment works of its kind in Europe.
The 58 acre site, bordering the sea at Tremorfa, will prove to be a great environmental asset for South Wales, and will significantly improve the sea water quality off the South-East Wales coast.
It is the final stage in Dwr Cymru Welsh Water's coastal strategy as part of the 'Green Seas' campaign, with the aim of gaining a Blue Flag quality award for the beach at Barry.
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