The combined heat and power (CHP) technology is an important cornerstone in the environmentally friendly district heating supply of the city of Ulm. FUG has been using CHP technology for over 60 years and is consistently expanding it. To facilitate uniform supply, FUG has set up pump stations around the city, which transport the heating-energy from its power plant to the citizens’ houses. FUG stands for the supply with 2/3 clean energy from around 50% of Ulm's citizens, businesses and companies. For this purpose, FUG operates a 180km long supply network in Ulm.
For more than eight years, ABB has been supporting FUG with service expertise for over 100 ABB and non-ABB drives are installed in their power plant. Recently, together with the expansion of services also to the pump stations, the network that goes out of the power plant and distributed in the whole city, there was also a shift in the way services are delivered. ABB is guaranteeing the outcome per FUGs needs, which translates into ensuring uptime and efficiency through continuous availability of drives. ABB will provide FUG with 24x7 technical support from ABB service experts, including onsite and remote support, within a 6h response time. Part of the tailored agreement, a preventive maintenance program is included, which takes a step-by-step approach with procedures undertaken at intervals over the lifetime of the drives installed base. The exact timetable is based on the operating profile and methods as well as ambient conditions, and helps improve uptime, improve productivity, and reduce maintenance cost.
“Partnering with ABB to ensure availability of our power plant gives peace of mind to us so we can ensure the constant flow of heating into the city of Ulm. Outsourcing resources that help us not only improve and be more efficient but guarantee that we can stay online, without incurring unplanned costs, is a multi-benefit situation that gives us the time to focus on other parts of the core business: the generation and sale of district heating through combined heat and power.” says Michael Berger, Technical Director of FUG.
Availability (24 hours a day / 7 days a day / 365 days a year) is decisive for the partnership with ABB of the range of services” continues Michael Berger. “Furthermore, we secure through our core business - the generation and the sale of district heating through combined heat and power - the cooperation with ABB, our customers the highest security of supply.” adds Sebastian Pongratz, Sales Manager at FUG.
“In this new age of service partnerships, the ‘outcome-based service model’ is becoming more and more attractive for customers because, when becoming their partner, we take all risks away from them so they can focus on their core business. We can guarantee certain level of delivery, ie. uptime or availability by proactively addressing their maintenance needs and preventing any potential failures through our preventive maintenance solutions.” explains Michael Pfeffer, ABB Motion Services Lead in Germany.
“For FUG, the service agreement package comes with a fixed annual maintenance fee, covering repair of parts as well as labor support, replacement of aging components as well preventive maintenance.” concludes Michael.
