ABB’s digital solutions and engineering services are set to improve the availability and reliability of power in the Brazilian state of Paraná, after the company won a $2.5 million contract to upgrade Copel’s Governador José Richa hydro power plant.
ABB (
www.new.abb.com) will provide ‘excitation systems and speed regulation’ for four generator units at the 20-year-old power plant on the Iguazu River and help Copel (Companhia Paranaense de Energia) to ‘enhance the visibility of its operational data using predictive diagnostics’.
The plant has the capacity to meet the power demands of about 4.5 million people (some 40% of Paraná’s population).
Maurício Cunha, head of industrial automation at ABB Brazil, said: “The upgrade of the excitation system and the turbine speed regulators — plus their integration into the ABB Ability 800¥A automation system — will improve the performance and reliability of this hydro-electric power plant.
"Modern hardware allows the Unitrol 6000 control loop to react faster to grid disturbances, without disconnecting the unit from the grid.”
Copel is one of the largest companies in the Brazilian electricity sector. It has 46 power plants of its own (20 hydro-electric, one thermal and 25 wind farms) and operates a number of other hydro-electric power plants with an installed capacity of 6,394MW.
Jaime de Oliveira Kuhn, its chief of power generation, said: “Modernisation aims to increase efficiency in the power plant. After 20 years of operating and a total of more than 130 million MWhr generated, it was time to modernise the Governador José Richa power plant to ensure its high performance and reliability levels continue.
"ABB’s life-cycle support offered us the peace of mind to be able to update our systems, without having to worry about costly down-time.”