ABB has been awarded a contract with Swedish energy company Mälarenergi to develop “smart city solutions” that will make Västerås, Sweden’s fifth largest urban area, more attractive as a community for citizens and industry.
Mälarenergi provides a broad range of essential services for Västerås’s 150,000 residents and businesses. The utility operates hydropower plants, the local power grid, a waste-to-energy plant, heating and cooling networks, water and wastewater treatment plants, a water distribution network and a fiber-optic network.
In 2017, Mälarenergi and ABB formed a team to develop digital solutions that will minimize environmental impact and create high-value digital services for customers. A key objective of this digital investment is to integrate the control rooms of the many automation systems that manage these expansive operations to create one unified operating environment.
“The cost and environmental benefits of using ABB’s digital technologies to reduce our operating footprint is remarkable,” said Niklas Gunnar, CEO at Mälarenergi “This will free up financial resources currently being used inefficiently to run different facilities, and instead be invested in areas that will truly benefit our customers.”
This “smart city solution” will leverage the ABB Ability™ Collaborative Operations approach to integrating ABB best-in-class technologies and services with Mälarenergi’s existing operational expertise. Collaborative Operations combines deep control and domain knowledge of both parties, to make more useful information available faster, so Mälarenergi and ABB can know more, do more and do better, together. This approach will transform Mälarenergi from a traditional utility infrastructure company to a provider of integrated “infraservices” with the end-user experience in mind.
Applied to the district heating network, for example, which serves 98 percent of the city’s buildings, Collaborative Operations will optimize operational performance and reduce energy consumption. Data analytics will make it easier for operators to identify, categorize and prioritize potential issues with assets, processes and risk areas, so they can increase efficiency and reduce costs.
ABB Ability Collaborative Operations is part of the company’s ABB AbilityTM portfolio of digital solutions. It provides performance management, remote monitoring and preventive analysis technologies to ensure security, improve efficiency and increase productivity in many industries globally. Collaborative Operations Centers connect people in enterprise-wide production facilities and headquarters to ABB’s domain and technology experts, shortening time-to-resolution for operational issues.
ABB Ability is the company’s unified, cross-industry portfolio of digital solutions and capabilities extending from device to edge to cloud, integrating data to and from products, systems, solutions and services to deliver actionable information. The ABB Ability platform uses Microsoft Azure as the cloud for its integrated connectivity, so users can access enterprise-grade infrastructure that benefits from Microsoft’s significant investment.
“Together, ABB and Microsoft provide digital technology and capabilities that enable optimizing operations and infrastructure in enterprises in a way that has not been possible before.” said Çaðlayan Arkan, General Manager, Manufacturing Industry of Microsoft. “ABB Ability Collaborative Operations is an illustrative example of a digital solution that leverages intelligent cloud technologies that empower cities, as well as industrial customers to become smarter by generating new insights and enabling better decision making.”
“We are proud to partner with Mälarenergi on their digital transformation, and create tangible benefits for Västerås’s residents and businesses,” said Kevin Kosisko, managing director of ABB’s power generation and water business. “Our record of driving digitalization and delivering smart city solutions will help Västerås operate at high levels of efficiency, sustainability and resilience.”
ABB is a leading provider of integrated power and automation solutions with unparalleled experience in partnering with the energy and water industries, delivering improved operations and sustainable progress. We deliver integrated and secure digital systems, services and solutions to automate and optimize performance of conventional and renewable power plants and water facilities.
ABB (ABBN: SIX Swiss Ex) is a pioneering technology leader in electrification products, robotics and motion, industrial automation and power grids, serving customers in utilities, industry and transport & infrastructure globally. Continuing a history of innovation spanning more than 130 years, ABB today is writing the future of industrial digitalization with two clear value propositions: bringing electricity from any power plant to any plug and automating industries from natural resources to finished products. As title partner of Formula E, the fully electric international FIA motorsport class, ABB is pushing the boundaries of e-mobility to contribute to a sustainable future. ABB operates in more than 100 countries with about 135,000 employees. www.abb.com
