ABB press release
2008-04-10 – India’s sugar mills are investing in bagasse cogeneration plants and turning to ABB for complete automation and electrical balance of plant (eBOP) solutions that help generate new revenues and provide reliable carbon-neutral power and process steam at near-zero fuel cost.
India, the world’s second largest sugar producer, is encouraging its sugar mills to reap the multiple benefits of investing in bagasse-fueled cogeneration plants, and ABB is playing a crucial role in supplying the automation systems and electrical balance of plant that help make these benefits possible.
Bagasse is the fibrous residue that remains after the sugarcane has been crushed and the juice extracted. It is a biomass fuel with a carbon-neutral rating because it absorbs CO2 during growth and eliminates the use of fossil fuels in power generation.
Bagasse fiber (above), the residue after sugarcane is crushed to make sugar, can be burned for fuel.
The great advantage of a bagasse cogeneration plant is that it provides a stable and reliable source of electricity and steam to power the mill and sugar refining process.
Significant revenues are generated by selling surplus energy to the grid, production costs are reduced by using fuel (bagasse) that is available onsite and at virtually zero cost, and production downtime caused by grid outages is eliminated.
The fiber that remains after sugarcane is crushed makes a fuel that eliminates the need for fossil fuels in power generation
– it even absorbs CO2 while the plant is growing.
The DCS leader
ABB is the world’s leading supplier of both distributed control systems (DCS) and electrical balance of plant to the power generation industry, and has received a number of recent orders to equip bagasse cogeneration plants for sugar mills in India.
ABB’s scope of supply ranges from complete electrical systems to instrumentation and control, and also includes comprehensive customer support and remote service. DCS solutions are based on ABB’s award-winning and market-leading Extended Automation System 800xA.
System 800xA enables customers to incorporate all their automation functions – including the mills’ process automation systems – in a single operations and engineering environment. It is the only automation system that supports all leading fieldbuses, and is now operating in more than 3,000 installations worldwide.
Interesting web resources
- C2V – CO2 to Value – a comprehensive web resource providing insights on opportunities in converting CO2 into a range of useful products – fuels, chemicals, food & materials
- All about CO2 – CO2 Q&A – a unique resource providing answers to 100+ questions on the most talked about gas today.
