Starting from the end, originating from Huazhi – entering a new stage of green energy: Since the early 20th century, Norrk ö ping in Sweden has been a gathering place for major turbine and pump manufacturers. Over a hundred years later, a small company called Againity joined their ranks in 2013 and is now disrupting the energy production industry, pursuing a greener future.

The story of Againity begins with small details, all stemming from the personal dream of its founder David Fryker å s. In order to fully utilize the energy loss in industrial processes, he established Againity. This company has found a method to convert hot water into electricity and district heating, with a system efficiency of up to 99%.

Againity’s patented ORC turbine can fully utilize various low-temperature waste heat and convert it into stable and renewable electricity. Both the hot water boilers in heating plants and the waste heat from industrial processes can serve as energy sources for their power generation. Even if the temperature difference is only 30 degrees Celsius, it can still drive this special type of ORC turbine to generate electricity. Moreover, Againity’s ORC turbine power generation system adopts a modular design, with electrical power ranging from 100kWe to 560kWe.

Cutting edge technology empowers turbine power generation systems

Againity is committed to investing in high-quality products and understands that any small device malfunction can affect the normal operation of the entire system. ABB has a good reputation for high-quality products and professional technical support, providing a solid foundation for Againity to use ABB’s complete automation product portfolio. In Againity’s ORC turbine power generation system, almost all components are provided by ABB, including low-voltage products, frequency converters, ABB Jokab Pluto safety programmable logic controllers (PLCs), and AC500 PLCs with CP600 control panels. These products have excellent synergy and form a complete ABB product portfolio, making them an ideal choice for Againity.

The turbine power generation application uses two sets of AC500 PLCs. One set of PLCs is used for modularization, upgrading pre installed turbines, and achieving data acquisition and secure cloud connectivity, while the main PLC is responsible for controlling the ORC generator. These two sets of PLCs need to process approximately 200 signals.

The AC500 CPU needs to consider a large number of parameters to meet grid specifications and synchronize the turbine with the grid during startup. The turbine adopts Modbus TCP as the main communication protocol, which not only facilitates data exchange between two sets of AC500 CPUs, but also connects other components in the cabinet, such as ABB frequency converters, liquid level switches, and other important equipment.

The device is equipped with ACS380 mechanical transmission and ACS580 universal transmission, which are used to control the speed of the motor that provides power to the water pump, in order to achieve better flow control throughout the entire process. In some applications, ACS880 feedback type industrial frequency converters are connected to specially designed ABB motors, which act as generators and are driven by turbines responsible for power generation. In addition, the device is equipped with a CP600 control panel for local operation. All devices are integrated into the existing on-site SCADA solution, which completes most of the monitoring work.

 
AC500 acts as a gateway, providing real-time data from devices to proprietary cloud solutions through the MQTT protocol. It reads data from the main PLC, frequency converter, and other important components. All data is processed by the cloud gateway PLC, generating data packets containing 200 floating-point values. These data packets are transmitted to the cloud at a frequency of once per second and can be used for further analysis.

Network security is crucial in these applications, and ABB’s PLCs can provide a very high level of security protection, “said Rickard Haglund, Automation Manager at Againity

The reliable operation of all equipment components is crucial, as in an ideal situation, the turbine should always be running, and in the event of running out of hot water supply, the components can limit their performance to prevent shutdown. The CPU of the AC500 PLC fully utilizes its integrated floating-point unit to perform advanced thermodynamic calculations continuously using a sixth degree polynomial, ensuring the continuous operation of the turbine and monitoring overheating and underheating conditions.

Rickard added, “ABB’s programming software provides tools to simplify programming. The ability to download program changes online is important to us as it can be done during operation without downtime

Automation Builder is an ideal tool for Againity ORC turbines, as it uses structured text for advanced computational programming and continuous function diagram (CFC) programming for the main program, providing an overview of the entire process.

Againity’s ORC turbines can be deployed in different locations, such as treatment plants containing residual gases, district heating stations, etc. Nowadays, many Againity turbines have been put into operation in Sweden, Norway, Finland, Poland, Estonia, Lithuania, and Greenland.