A specialist steel manufacturer in
Rotherham is set to save £68,000 a
year on the energy costs of pumping
applications following the installation
of five ABB industrial drives.

The Tata Steel plant produces
speciality steels for customers with
demanding applications in aerospace,
oil and gas, power generation and the
manufacture of industrial bearings.

ABB Drives Alliance member
Halcyon Drives supplied, installed
and commissioned three, 90kW and
two 75kW ABB industrial drives to
control critical pumping applications
at the plant. Rated at IP55 to stop the
ingress of dust and moisture, the
drives with in-built intelligent pump
function, multi-pump control, ensures
that the optimum number of pumps is
running to satisfy the process demand
and brings a backup pump online in
the event of a pump failure.

As part of its energy saving plan,
Tata Steel identified its flume flush
pumps and filter feed pumps as prime
candidates for energy efficiency
improvements. During production,
hot steel billets are cut by a gas cutter,
generating scrap material that flakes
off the billet. The three 90kW flume
flush pumps are used to flush water
across the billet to carry this scrap
away. While in production, two flume
flush pumps run continuously. This
scrap is filtered out of the water,
which is then returned to the process
via a holding tank, known as a clear
well, by two duty 75kW filter feed
pumps.

Tata Steel engineers carried out
their own investigation, which
indicated that controlling the pumps
by VSDs would provide significant
savings. In particular, the investigation
on the filter feed pumps showed that
only one pump would be needed to
meet the demands of the recirculating
water system. One of these pump sets
will be removed and used as a spare.