Actuators for district heating in Moscow

Moscow, Russia – With temperatures dropping as low as -40°C, thousands of multi-flat dwellings in Moscow employ district heating for a large part of the year.

A modernisation programme incorporating SIPOS Aktorik’s electric actuators is updating a district system to ensure that effective year round heating is provided to the Russian capital’s residents.

Over 30 SIPOS actuators provide valve control technology for large pipelines up to 1000 mm in diameter which require fast closure to avoid water leakage, which would be catastrophic for Moscow city as, due to the climate, the water would rapidly turn to ice in winter.

A proportion of the actuators are adopted for emergency closing and a number are used for precise flow control (modulating duty).

The requirements for actuators used in the district heating application included variable speed performance for precision modulation, soft start and stop capability and prevention of water hammer.

According to the supplier, SIPOS 5 actuators have no start-up current, low-cost UPS systems can be utilised for power independency. A redundant PROFIBUS interface, it added, enables integration of the actuators into the Moscow system’s modern DCS.