Just to the east of the Black Sea city of Odessa, TIS Group operates Ukraine’s largest and deepest dry cargo port. The company’s terminals serve as the gateway for the mining and metallurgical industries of Ukraine.
More than 700 ships come to this port each year, taking around 26 million tons of grain, fertilizer, coal, and ore to thousands of ports around the world. The port terminals have set records for their cargo handling speeds, due in part to continuous investment in technologies to expand their capability and capacity.
It is critical for such a facility to manage the power efficiently.
TIS uses mains power for its energy, utilizing a capacitor bank to reduce loads on the power transformer. This helps to limit the demand peaks and reactive power consumption that causes penalty charges from utilities.
Hence, when TIS upgraded its low-voltage hardware with a complete ABB solution, a key objective was to provide effective power management
Yuriy Demyanenko, Senior Product Marketing Specialist for ABB’s Protection and Connection business, in ABB Ukraine, said: “This was the first time that a System Pro E power solution had been installed in Ukraine. The TIS Group project was substantial and required ABB’s complete range of power technologies to deliver maximum reliability.
“In April 2016, just two months after TIS awarded ABB the project, the new solution was set up and running. Engineers at ABB’s headquarters worked with the Ukrainian team and the local panel builder Engineering Company B&S throughout the project to provide the technical support and guidance on the design and commissioning at every stage.”
At the heart of ABB’s solution is System Pro E power, the company’s innovative main distribution switchboard system with rated current up to 6,300A and short-circuit current up to 120kA. The simple, flexible system fulfils all the electrical installation requirements of the latest international standards and is perfectly harmonized to the ABB’s complete range of low-voltage equipment.
Equipped with SACE Emax 2 smart circuit breakers and with the capability to fully integrate motor drive and capacitor systems, the power infrastructure of TIS Group is able to solve the power quality problems that can appear for operations of this size.
The initiative to equip the PFC-installation with ABB’s compact CLMD03 low-voltage capacitor brings its benefits. ABB’s RVC range of power factor controllers play a key role in the control and monitoring of the power factor and system power quality of TIS Group. Connection to the higher network voltage is facilitated through an ABB current transformer.
With the power factor, voltage imbalances, inrush generated sags, and harmonics addressed, financial penalties become lower and the electrical equipment reliability becomes higher. By using ABB’s design software, local panel builder Engineering Company B&S created fully integrated switchgear that fits within a compact secondary substation.
Olga Skarlat, Deputy Technical Director, Engineering Company "B & S", mentioned: “We received complete solution adapted to single ABB brand, which fully complies with the optimal Price-Quality-Warranty-Service criteria. In addition, the flexibility of System Pro E Power allowed the installation of different apparatus and equipment in a single compact unit of switchgear. Moreover, by addressing reactive power issues, the ABB solution has decreased this facility’s reactive power by 15 percent. The potential reduction in utility penalty charges becomes even greater.”
The main technologies used in the TIS project include:
- Main distribution switchboard: System pro E power
- Air circuit breakers: SACE Emax 2
- Molded case circuit breakers: Tmax XT
- Switch-disconnector: OT1000E03P
- Fusegear: fuse-switch-disconnectors ZLBM, InLine 2
- Capacitors: CLMD03
- Reactive power factor controller: RVC
- Network analyzer: M2M
- Current transformers: CT12