Located in the municipality of Guadalupe in Nuevo Leon, one of Mexico’s most prosperous industrial states, the wastewater treatment plant at the service of Grupo Gondi is operated by Kadled-BTO. The facilities are divided into two areas; the first of them receives industrial water from another plant to be treated and then used as process water in Gondi Group’s paper mill. The second area is where wastewater from the paper production process is received, treated here and put back into circulation for use in other industrial processes.
This plant has the capacity and immediate availability to deliver 300 liters per second depending on the needs of Grupo Gondi’s production process. To have a point of comparison, with ABB equipment the plant could fill an Olympic size swimming pool in 2.3 hours
- Francisco Torres, Channel Manager for Motion ABB Mexico.
Strategic alliance for a seamless automation
Following a commercial alliance between Kadled, a company committed to preserving the environment and specialized in lighting solutions, manufacturing of electronics and wastewater treatment processes, and Grupo Baja Tensión de Occidente (BTO), a company that sells electrical and automation products for the industrial and construction markets in Mexico; the plant began operations with the main objective of providing fresh water for the production process of Grupo Gondi’s paper mill, a Mexican company that has been a pioneer in the production of recycled paper and cardboard packaging since 1954. In order to achieve a complete and reliable automation process of the plant operations, considering the challenging demands from Kadled-BTO’s customers, it was of great importance to work with a partner that had an easily accessible staff with the ability to source and deliver products on time, with the knowledge and skills to ensure the correct implementation of every automation process of their operations once this project was launched.By bringing together ABB’s global network of water-related support, plus Grupo BTO’s automation expertise and Kadled operational experience, the goal of automating the plant’s operations was successfully achieved.
ABB and Grupo BTO were in charge of doing the design of the entire electrical aspect of the plant to ensure a stable operation, something that is very important for us because the plant, in turn, is part of other operation chains in which, if something fails on our side, it directly affects the other production processes of our customers
- Adriana Füzy De Nóbrega, Project Manager of Aguas de Guadalupe plant.
ABB has the technology and credibility to deliver reliable products that allow its customers to visualize in real-time all of their production processes. The plant currently operates 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, with 2 people per shift who monitor the entire operation from a control center.
Having good equipment is one of several factors that must be considered for projects of this type. The technological structure behind such equipment is critical to give customers confidence and peace of mind that the automation of their processes will work properly - Oscar Palacio H., President, Grupo BTO.
ABB Ability™ enables plant operators to have real-time readings of each of the plant’s operating points, allowing them to detect in advance any unforeseen events that may arise in the operation and thus take timely action to avoid an unscheduled plant shutdown.
Working on all solutions from the point of view of energy efficiency was a priority for the entire team that was involved from the beginning in this automation project. Every ACQ580 water and wastewater industry variable speed drives installed on the surface aerators, which oxygenate the activated sludge in the treatment plant tanks, work in conjunction with the 9408-700 sensors and WaterMaster flowmeters that monitor the activity of these lagoons and indicate the aerator electric motors when to vary the speed to accelerate or decelerate them and achieve an energy reduction that can range between 20 and 40% of the plant’s operations’ energy consumption.
The key to success
The commercial alliance between Kadled and BTO, innovative companies which are in constant evolution, plus ABB’s spirit to take on new challenges, resulted in the winning formula to achieve the goals of this project. Due to the joint work by different actors, it was possible to identify, adapt and install the quality products especially developed by ABB to tackle the needs of this treatment plant and help them save energy every day by automating their processes.
