End of Life Services

The service for low voltage products of ABB aims to extend as much as possible the product’s lifetime offering different solutions:

• Keep the product up and running with dedicated maintenance programs -> Maintenance and advanced services of health monitoring (Predict)
• Maintain the product performance accessing to genuine components Spare parts: always the most updated and last release version
• Modernize the circuit breaker adding external trip unit with new functionalities -> Ekip UP
• Replacement of the circuit breaker with an equal one if still produced -> LCM
• Replacement of the circuit breaker with a more modern one using an adapter kit -> Retrofit kit

For the countries where it is applicable, ABB manages the decommissioning of the WEEE: ABB wants to promote awareness of the importance of minimizing the environmental impact. When replacing a circuit-breaker with a retrofit, ABB can manage, with the approval of the customer and with the support of local certified partners, the pick-up of the ABB WEEE material. The local certified partner discomposes the discarded product into sub-parts to maximize the amount of recycled material. Material that is not recyclable is converted into energy. If any residual material remains, it disposes of it according to local regulations (or even ABB internal regulations if the country is not environment friendly). ABB compensates for any CO2 residues associated with disposal by planting trees to offset the CO2 and have a neutral environmental impact. Upon completion of the recycling / conversion / disposal activity, ABB delivers to customers who have joined this initiative, a declaration of recycling level, showing the percentages of material recycled / converted into energy and / or disposed of.

Avoiding replacing the complete switchgear but only the single component it’s a way to reduce raw material usage and CO2 impact. Let’s see some numbers: ABB Smart Power facility in Dalmine, Italy, celebrates milestone in retrofit kit production1) – which has saved more than 30,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions in the last five years! Upgrading and updating low voltage distribution systems with ABB retrofit solutions has resulted in more than 30,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions saved in the last five years, equivalent emissions of about 6000 passengers vehicles driven for 1 year2), and the reduction of 800 tons of copper and 1200 tons of steel per year throughout the same period.

[1] https://new.abb.com/news/detail/84681/abb-manufactures-10000th-lv-circuit-breaker-retrofit-kit

[2] www.epa.gov

* only with a retrofit kit/replacement order