ABB Highlights Automation and Power IntegrationABB Highlights Automation and Power Integration
May 21, 2010
At the 2009 ABB Automation & Power World event, whichtook place during one of the lowest points of the most recent recession, ABBexecutives assured attendees that despite the global economic uncertainties,the "future has not been cancelled." Underscoring its belief in that statement,ABB spent the last year investing more than $1 billion in R&D across thecompany's eight worldwide R&D centers. Results of the investment, showcasedat ABB's 2010 event in Houston, TX, can be seen in the company's heightened focuson integration of power and automation.
Integration of these historically separate functions is anincreasingly important concern for industrial systems designers because of thepredicted surge in energy demand worldwide. During his keynote presentation,ABB CEO Joe Hogan cited International EnergyAgency (IEA) research which indicates that energy demand will increase by40% by 2030, with Asia seeing the biggest increase. As a result, IEA predictsthat, by 2030, 57% of the solution to reducing CO2 production in thewake of this increasing energy demand will come through energy reduction, 20%through renewable energy, 10% via nuclear and 3% via biofuels.
Referencing another area experiencing a significant upsurge,Hogan pointed to the recent increases in commodity prices, which now stand atnearly pre-recession level. Hogan says this illustrates how strained materialsmarkets are in response to growing global market demands. "This increase inprices means companies have to think more strategically about how they designproducts," he adds.
"Commodity priceincreases will affect electrical design most," says Peter Terwiesch, ABB'schief technology officer, "because of the impact on copper and aluminumpricing." He also noted that the ongoing tradeoff of materials cost in relationto maximizing energy efficiency will remain a driver to determining overalllifecycle costs amid the upswing in commodity prices. One particular result ofthis trend that Terwiesch sees is an increasing shift toward greater use ofthermoplastics because of lower pricing for that material and lighter end products."Recyclability is also a big factor with thermoplastics," he says.
Energy Saving and Harvesting
As device and systems designers go about developing newenergy-saving capabilities to meet increasing energy demands and CO2reduction requirements, the low-hanging fruit of installing drives to control electricmotors still exists in abundance. According to Terwiesch, only 10% of installedmotors have drives. The basic step of "installing drives for better control ofprocesses and energy savings can save 30-50 percent of energy used inapplications," he says.
A related area of focus for ABB at the conference was onenergy harvesting. "There are 30 million HARTproducts installed using 4-20mA supply lines," Terwiesch says. "We've beenlooking at designing low power electronics to run on power directly from these4-20mA lines."
ABB's autonomous temperature transmitter prototype was on display at the company's 2010 Automation & Power World Event. |
When designing new products to do this, "it can expensive toharvest power from existing lines and it could also be potentially disruptive,so you have to design hardware and software components together to run using thelowest power possible," Terwiesch explains. "Only then do you look at where toget the power to run the device. In process plants you can get a lot of it fromprocess temperature, flow and vibration. This ambient power can be gathered andconverted by means of electric materials and piezo motors. But you also have tofigure on swings in such power availability -- so you need a storage elementfor the power you capture. That's why our current wireless HART device runs on 4-20mA loop power."
Powering devices with harvested energy is not a new venturefor ABB. In 2003, the company introduced a wireless proximity sensor that getsits power and communicates wirelessly. Despite recognition from a variety of sources, including the Wall Street Journal, commercial interestin the product has been slow to materialize.
When asked about the lack of high industry interest inenergy harvesting devices, Terwiesch says he does not see cost or power robustnessas reasons. "We've been using the wireless proximity sensor in our ownfactories without a problem for seven years now," he says. "But I think, for industryas a whole, these products are just too new."
ABB currently uses the wireless proximity sensors in itsplants for robotics control, but not safety applications, due to the smallfocus of the sensor's reading area.
Demonstrating its confidence in energy harvesting devices,ABB displayed a prototype of an autonomous temperature transmitter. Terwieschsays that ABB will be taking time with this prototype to "interact withcustomers and gauge their use and interest in these types of products and getthem thinking about how to use such products. " He adds that this prototype"uses wireless mesh networking, which also typically requires some explanationas well."
Connecting SeparateProcesses and Systems
With such a high proportion of responsibility for currentand future CO2 reduction dependent on energy management, the onus tomeet this goal will require concerted effort in the near-term from both productand systems designers to develop the most efficient devices in terms ofstand-alone capability and when integrated into larger systems.
This goal is behind ABB's focus on the integration of powerand automation. "Using separate processes for these systems makes little sensewhen the process is ultimately all about energy," says Terwiesch.
At their annual meeting, ABB announced that, to date, it hasbeen awarded 20 projects related to the combination of power and processautomation.
The company approaches this integration issueby noting that monitoring and control of power and automation systems areworlds apart in operation, most often separated by a lack of commoncommunication and architectural standards as well as organizational differencesbetween departments. The systems that serve process automation andpower automation within the same plant are separate, with extensive cabling andprotocols separating the two. These multiple systems also require multipledatabases, additional engineering tools, different operator stations, and, as aresult, more system administration and maintenance.
Accordingto ABB, electrical integration eliminates these barriers by integrating processautomation and power automation into the same plant control system to create asingle automation environment that reportedly unifies the control ofprocess-related equipment as well as protection, control and monitoring ofsubstation equipment and power transmission and distribution. Integrating theprocess automation system with the power automation system, according to ABB,permits a single design strategy for the areas of engineering, operations andmaintenance. ABB's 800xA control systemis promoted by the company as the central component of this integrationstrategy based on its IEC 61850 interface, which is said tointegrate switchgear and protection for intelligent electrical devices for thepower distribution side of an industrial plant.
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