The River Nile is well-known as the world’s longest river and has sustained generations of people over millennia. Modern day Egypt is of global importance with a population of more than 114 million people and a top 40 economy by GDP. Fresh water from its rivers and underground aquifers is essential for its top industries, including agriculture, manufacturing, heavy industries, textiles and oil and petroleum products. Government and industries also have a responsibility to retain and provide clean and safe water for residents and visitors, no mean feat when demand is high and amid instances of pollution.
“Control of water used for industrial processes is a large part of the overall picture, and technologists from companies like ABB can help,” said Ahmed Heikal, Middle East and North Africa Process Industries Local Division Manager, ABB. “Our technologies and solutions, combined with specialist technical knowledge, are being used to provide better visualization of water that’s consumed and recycled daily. Automated logic modules, motors, drives and pumps ensure high levels of efficiency, reduced maintenance costs and, ultimately, safe water when it leaves the plant and enters Egypt’s water courses.”
Environmental awareness with every movement through automation and electrification
At the end of 2023, ABB became further involved in the metal component manufacturing industries in Egypt. In the metals industry, the nation retains its position as the number one steel producer in Africa and the second in the Middle East and North Africa region with outputs of just under 10 million tons per annum. ABB is taking on the challenge of design, engineering, supply and integration of an automation and electrical system for water management for a global customer. The project relies on ABB’s metal segment expertise in water treatment plants for steel factories.
Three of the benefits of ABB’s involvement in this process are to enable the customer to monitor all consumed water in the metals processing plant, to reduce energy costs using an efficient drives system and to predict the maintenance requirements of pumps through connected smart modules and operator alarms.
ABB's distributed control system (DCS)
ABB Ability™ System 800xA® will play a crucial role in integrating the various components and expanding the platform to control an existing station, creating a high-level supervisory smart system with a centralized operating hub. ABB is committed to delivering the project with the utmost level of technological advancement, including the use of ABB's latest drive system ACS880 to optimize power savings.
The plant is considered to be one of the biggest in North Africa and the operator places its responsibility for safety and cleanliness of water among its highest priorities. Water can be used several times over within the plant due to an efficient supply system, and can be released into the wider regional network as non-contaminated water. The balance of keeping the country’s freshwater sources viable in the face of known pollution instances, overuse and saltwater contamination of fresh groundwater with industrial growth will continue to require many groups of people working together.
Egypt has limitations in terms of water resources. It has the dual challenge of its growing population and the increasing demands from industries. But, through environmental stewardship, sustainable practices and technological innovations there are answers. Infrastructure continues to develop and municipal and industrial water treatment works form part of it. The government’s Ministry of International Cooperation cites its Egypt 2050 strategy where improving water quality is its first pillar, followed by developing water resources, rationalizing consumption and creating an enabling environment for sustainable development. Water is said to be “where everything begins” under the initiative, playing a fundamental role in the economy. It underpins agricultural production, energy generation, industry and manufacturing.
The government has also been part of setting targets for industries, including agriculture and manufacturing, on how much water can be consumed. Companies can benefit economically if they are able to keep their use low. This is at a time when Egypt’s annual per capita water supply has gone from 2,000 cubic meters in 1959 to 560 cubic meters in 2021—well below the 1,000 cubic meters that the United Nations regards as the threshold for ‘water scarcity’ and close to ‘absolute scarcity’, which is set below 500 cubic meters per capita.
Returning to the manufacturing case, ABB is confident that the facility will play its part in the country’s push for better water availability for all by using the technologies that exist today. To ensure optimum performance of the plant’s water network ABB will use the world’s #1 distributed control system, the digitally connected ABB Ability™ System 800xA®. It will enable the customer to connect all signals from the field for daily monitoring and reporting during operational shift patterns – for measurement of consumed water. This is important because you cannot control what you cannot measure. It is a future-ready system with capacity for higher levels of energy management. Automated logic models will determine working hours of motors and facilitate swapping between pumps in the plant. This will not only reduce maintenance costs but also detect consumed power for each pump to understand energy costs and utilization.
Overall, this automated control system will provide a comprehensive view into the new water treatment station, removing manual ways of working from levels, flows and temperature, enabling quicker and easier decisions. Redundancy, power (including potential voltage drops), sequential operations, aspects of energy efficiency, safety and maintenance will all be more straightforward to comprehend. Safety, for example, improves as less operators will need to enter hazardous areas, protecting them from industrial noise and chemicals.
Through its water station, the customer will be able to make the water and chemical mix needed in an optimum way, fulfilling its process requirements. The customer will closely monitor the amount of water consumed, its volume and flow in order to take actions when needed, adjusting parameters to control the water that’s used.
The connected electrification will include an
ABB MNS® low-voltage switchgear which only adds to the customer’s opportunities to scale operations, ramping activity up or down depending on requirements. The panels provide a safe, utilized and optimum sized electrical system to easily trace faults and reduce downtime during troubleshooting. It will combine with motors and ABB ACS880 drives to adjust power consumption according to the need.
Egypt wants to see incoming technology companies and industrial players who are aligned with its modern approaches to avoid current anticipated water shortages. While it is taking steps itself through conservation, reuse and the likes of drip irrigation in food production, the heavy industries have to show the way because the same water that comes through their systems is used across the country for residents and businesses alike. As growth happens, the public are becoming aware of the challenges and organizations doing business in Egypt must do too.
With this project underway, ABB is seeking to make a difference and allow its customer to contribute to the wider picture in this important nation.
“Water can often be the unseen part of an industrial operation, but it is essential for many processes, including cooling, processing, molding and forming in metals,” said Shady Refaat, Egypt, North and Central Africa (ENCA) Process Industries Metal and Steel Sector Account Manager, ABB. “In Egypt, a largely arid, desert landscape, it is only too clear that it has to be conserved, reused and cleaned. Within the steel plant there is an opportunity to use modern and advanced technologies to help. Only this way can it operate sustainably for the long term and support resilience in the country’s supply.”