Recently, ABB, one of the top 500 enterprises in the world, has provided advanced multi drive solutions for the cement demonstration plant in Hubei under Huaxin Cement Co., Ltd., the oldest cement enterprise in China, which is applied to the conveyor belt system with strict requirements of the plant, helping the plant to save 1.6 million kWh of electricity every year and reduce the cost by nearly 900000 yuan.
Founded in 1907, Huaxin Cement has a history of 104 years. It is one of the leading enterprises in China’s sustainable production and industrial ecology, and also a demonstration enterprise of China’s circular economy. Its products have been used in the Three Gorges Dam and Danjiangkou Dam construction projects.
Huaxin Cement’s factory in Zigui, Hubei can produce 1.8 million tons of cement every year. The cement plant can also generate 75 million kilowatt hours of electricity every year by collecting waste heat in the production process and other measures.
Huaxin Cement has built a 2km long downhill conveyor belt to transport crushed stone and limestone from nearby mines to the raw material storage yard of the plant. Downhill conveyor belt is an extremely demanding application condition, which requires continuous braking to prevent the conveyor belt from overspeed during downhill. The belt is 1965 meters long, with a drop of 320 meters between the highest point and the lowest point, and a slope of 10.7 degrees. To this end, it is necessary to provide a set of solutions for the conveyor belt to help achieve the highest level of reliability and energy efficiency, while further strengthening the sustainable “recycling” production capacity of Huaxin Cement.
ABB has provided Huaxin Cement with a complete solution. The whole conveyor belt is driven by two 500 kW motors and controlled by ABB ACS800 multi drive frequency converter. ABB ACS800 transmission device can dynamically control the motor speed and torque, realizing the soft start and stop of the conveyor belt. Soft start eliminates the mechanical stress during start up, preventing material spillage and conveyor belt folding. At the same time, since ABB ACS800 equipment is equipped with an energy regeneration device, during downhill operation, the transmission device can also feed back the energy generated by the transmission system and transmit it back to the power grid of the cement plant.
According to the calculation of Huaxin Cement, ABB multi drive solution can help cement plants save up to 1.6 million kilowatt hours of electricity every year, worth 138000 dollars (about 880000 yuan), and significantly reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of cement plants, which strongly supports Huaxin Cement to achieve the goal of circular economy construction.