2008-01-28 - ABB has delivered a vast 750 MVA substation and power transmission solution to CBA’s integrated aluminum complex in Brazil, the largest in the world. The solution provides CBA with a stable and reliable supply of energy, enough to boost production capacity by almost 20 percent to 475,000 tons of aluminum a year.
By
ABB Communications
The substation is the most powerful industrial substation ever delivered in Brazil and is part of a larger ABB power transmission solution that enabled Companhia Brasileira de Alumínio (CBA) to increase production capacity from 400,000 to 475,000 metric tons of aluminum a year.
Located at Alumínio near Sao Paulo, the CBA complex is the largest integrated aluminum facility in the world. The entire production process is performed at the site, from refining the bauxite into alumina, reducing and casting the alumina into primary aluminum, and manufacturing the aluminum into products like profiles, tubes, wires, cables and coils.
ABB completed the project in just 16 months
– for a considerable boost in production.
This is the seventh substation that ABB has supplied to the facility, the two most recent of which have helped CBA to increase production capacity by a staggering 98 percent – from 240,000 tons to the present 475,000 tons - since 2002.
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More than 5,500 people work at CBA in Brazil. The complex, at 700,000 m2, is the largest in the world.
Bauxite processing and aluminum production are energy-intensive industries that require vast amounts of electric energy. The facility’s existing 230 kV transmission network was not sufficient to power the latest expansion in capacity, so a connection to the more powerful 440 kV grid nearby was necessary.
To do this ABB delivered a 440/230 kV substation with two 375 MVA transformers, a 230 kV interconnection substation and a 230 kV switching substation, as well as transmission lines (440 kV, 230 kV and 6.6 kV), a water supply system to the 440/230 kV substation and a telecommunications system.
ABB completed the project in just 16 months. Project challenges included transportation of two 326-ton transformers through often unpaved and hilly terrain, the coordination of complex installations both inside and outside the facility perimeter, and energizing the substations and transmission lines without interrupting power supply to the plant or the 440 kV grid.