Wireless helps DUBAL to compress energy costs
14 May 2010
Dubai, UAE – Dubai Aluminum Co. Ltd (DUBAL) has cut its energy consumption following the installation of a wireless network at its Jebel Ali site. The system was required to manage an increasing demand for compressed air in each of seven plant areas at the facility – one of the world’s largest aluminium smelters.
DUBAL added a Smart Wireless network from Emerson Process Management to monitor trends and spikes in air flow consumption and provide operators with real-time data around the clock. The system has provided energy savings of 13% at the site, Emerson said.
Some 20 Rosemount 648 wireless transmitters were connected onto its existing, hard-wired air flow meters, which are installed on the compressed air utility lines running along the plant periphery.
“We now have more knowledge about the compressed air consumption in the plant and have therefore improved our ability to plan and control costs,” said Vivek Singh, DUBAL senior project engineer, control & instrumentation, plant engineering services.
The wireless transmitters form a self-organising field network and convert the meters’ 4-20 milliamp signal, transmitting the same to a Smart Wireless Gateway. The gateway sends the signal data to DUBAL’s existing SCADA system using IEC-approved WirelessHART protocol.
The new network has eliminated the need for operators to spend about two hours a day making rounds to the meters to record data manually. Previously, if the observer was not at a meter during a spike in usage, there was no way to identify when and where it had occurred.
According to Singh, DUBAL now intends to install additional wireless networks in other parts of its plant, following the success of its first application of the technology.
The DUBAL site has the capacity to produce more than one million metric tonnes of finished aluminum products a year. Built on a 480-hectare site includes a 980ktpa primary aluminium smelter, a 2,335MW power station, a large carbon plant, casting operations with a capacity of over 1,270ktpa, a 30m gallon/day seawater desalination plant, laboratories, port and storage facilities.
