Cleantech company Hitachi Zosen Inova (HZI) Australia, has selected three ABB ACF5000 analyzers as part of a complete continuous emission monitoring (CEM) solution to accurately monitor the composition of exhaust gases at its new large-scale East Rockingham Waste-to-Energy facility, located 45 km south of Perth, Western Australia.
High-tech facilities like this waste -to-energy plant address two major challenges facing Australia because they deliver sustainable and affordable solutions for both electricity generation and waste management, according to the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) which provided support for the project via grant funding.
The plant will generate 29 MW of electricity for the local state-owned electricity grid, more than 50 per cent of it deemed to be renewable. This is enough capacity to power 40,000 homes from an annual feedstock of up to 330,000 tonnes of municipal, industrial and commercial waste. The byproducts from the incineration process will be used to build roads and produce construction materials, ensuring that 70,000 tonnes of bottom ash will not go to landfill.
The success of the A$511 million project is vital to improve waste diversion rates. Perth is built on a sandy coastal plain and heavily reliant on groundwater as its primary source of potable water, so when existing landfill sites reach capacity, new metropolitan area landfill sites are unlikely to be approved.
ABB’s multi-component gas analyzers will help the plant operator control the cost of compliance, remove complexity, and maximize profit while operating in a sustainable way. Digital service technology will be a key feature of the project, particularly ABB Ability™ Condition Monitoring for measurement devices which will enable ABB to provide remote support during commissioning, start-up and throughout the analyzers’ lifecycle. This means ABB will contribute expert engineering input without visiting the site, enabling condition-based maintenance instead of schedule-based maintenance, with interaction secured by ABB’s world-leading cybersecurity technologies.
"We are pleased to have selected ABB for this project as they share our mission to deliver sustainable solutions for a better environment," said Dr. Marc Stammbach, Country Sales Manager of Hitachi Zosen Inova Australia.
In addition to developing and constructing the state-of-the-art facility in the Rockingham Industrial Zone, which will be the second largest of its kind to be built in Australia, HZI will also part-own and co-operate it. Waste-to-energy projects attract the highest level of assessment by environmental regulators and having the combination of ABB’s world-class gas analyzers and expert services will help ensure maximum up-time, regulatory compliance and continued profitable operations. ABB CEMS consistently achieve in excess of 98% up-time, which means less maintenance effort, lower total cost of ownership and elimination of the stress and workload caused by non-compliance.
“ABB is excited to be involved in this groundbreaking waste-to-energy project that helps reduce the environmental impact of waste management and supports our vision for a more sustainable world," said Adrian Mather, head of ABB's Measurement & Analytics division for ABB in Australia. "Our analytics offering, local capabilities and domain expertise enable us to make a significant contribution across the project value chain from engineering and project execution to life cycle support."
Once operational in December 2022, this new plant and its process will achieve 96 per cent diversion from landfill. This will make a significant environmental impact given that more than 23 million tons of waste goes into Australian landfill every year, with Western Australia having the highest waste generation rate per capita, coupled with the lowest recovery rate, of any state in Australia.
The project had financial close on 23 Dec 2019 and is owned by a consortium consisting of John Laing (40%), Masdar/Tribe (40%), Acciona Construction (10%), and Hitachi Zosen Inova (HZI), (10%). The project shareholders awarded the contract to design, build and commission the plant to an EPC consortium formed by Acciona Industrial and HZI.
ABB’s ACF5000 multi-component FTIR spectrometer analyzer system can measure up to 15 gas components simultaneously and is a complete system with a compact and modular design that offers low total cost of ownership. ABB technology is at the heart of more than two thousand analyzer and CEM solutions installations, globally. These advanced measurement solutions enable some of the world's largest cities including Frankfurt, London, Vienna and Singapore to efficiently, cost-effectively and safely generate renewable energy from waste. ABB’s analyzers can also be found in space, monitoring greenhouse gas emissions from satellites.
