2008-01-15 - ABB water-cooled motors and drives have been selected to power the first large-scale desalination plant on the Australian east coast. Lowest harmonics, fastest switching response, smallest footprint – and ABB’s unrivalled reference list of energy-efficient solutions for desalination plants - were the reasons why.
By
ABB Communications
ABB is also supplying the low voltage drives for all the pump applications at the plant. Launched in 2005, the ACS800 is the world’s first dedicated low harmonic drive - a complete, ready-to-install drive that eliminates the need for multi-pulse transformers or external filters and reduces current distortion to as little as 3 percent - the lowest on the market.
ABB competed against all the major global suppliers of motors and drives and was awarded the contract for best compliance with a diverse and demanding range of specifications and requirements that included lowest operating costs and fastest delivery.
The customer, GCD Alliance, selected the ABB solution for the Tugun desalination plant on the Queensland Gold Coast, the first large-scale desalination project along the entire Australian eastern seaboard. Tugun will provide 125 million liters a day of much-needed potable water to an area severely affected by drought.
The ABB solution of water-cooled motors and ACS 1000 water-cooled variable speed drives will power and control the reverse osmosis pumps and energy recovery booster pumps. It was selected by the customer for the following reasons:
- Lowest harmonic distortion – an exceptionally low level of three percent harmonic distortion was stipulated by the electric utility to prevent grid disturbance in a densely populated and tourist-dependent area
- Fastest switching response – the ACS 1000 is equipped with ABB’s Direct Torque Control and a high-power IGCT (integrated gate commutated thyristor) semiconductor to give it by far the fastest and most accurate switching response of any drives technology; this is of crucial importance in reverse osmosis where the drives have to control the pumps extremely accurately to keep the pressure of the water across the membranes constant
- Smallest footprint – ABB was able to supply an exceptionally compact water-cooled version of the ACS 1000; air-cooled drives require an air conditioning unit that requires additional space, consumes energy and increases operating costs
- Highest motor efficiencies, lowest noise levels, fastest delivery – ABB’s high voltage motors had the highest efficiencies and lowest noise levels of the motors assessed. In addition, ABB orchestrated its global manufacturing resources to meet the customer’s pressing delivery deadline.
ABB has supplied desalination plants in the Middle East, Asia Pacific and Americas with a broad range of products, systems and solutions ranging from motors and drives to instrumentation, distributed control systems, plant optimization systems and electrical balance of plant for desalination power stations.