Control System World

Zurich, Switzerland, March 8, 2012 – ABB, the leading power and automation technology group, has won a $60 million contract from Shell Gas Iraq B.V. to build a new power plant in southern Iraq.

The power plant will be operated by the Basrah Gas Company, a joint venture company to be set up as part of the Iraq, South Gas Project, following signature of the main project agreements in November 2011. The project includes the rehabilitation of the existing facilities and addition of new facilities. ABB’s optimized technical solution and ability to execute the project on a tight schedule were both important factors that contributed to its success in winning this order.

“This project will ensure a stable and reliable power supply to support existing and future infrastructure,” said Veli-Matti Reinikkala, head of ABB’s Process Automation division. “ABB’s capability to fully execute all aspects of this complex project will help provide the Basrah Gas Company with the electricity it needs to successfully power its complete production process.”

SNC-Lavalin (TSX: SNC) will provide project management, engineering, procurement and construction management (EPCM) services for Vale’s $2-billion Clean AER (Atmospheric Emissions Reduction) Project in Sudbury, Ontario.

Working closely with Vale and local contractors, SNC-Lavalin will retrofit and modernize Vale’s nickel smelter complex to reduce its current sulphur dioxide emissions levels by 70%, and its dust and metal emissions by up to 40% over current levels. Work will be carried out while the complex continues its regular operations with scheduled plant shut-downs.

“Vale is a repeat and long-standing client and we’re delighted they chose to retain us for the implementation phase of this major strategic environmental program,” said Feroz Ashraf, Executive Vice-President, SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. “We’ll be using the most appropriate and available commercial technology in our designs, and taking necessary considerations to reduce emissions over the life cycle of the project.”

Passive Energy Efficiency is regarded as the installation of countermeasures against thermal losses, the use of low consumption equipment, and so forth.  It is vital, but insufficient, to make use of energy-saving equipment and devices such as low-energy lighting. Without proper control, these measures often merely militate against energy losses rather than make a real reduction in energy consumed and in the way it is used.Everything that consumes power must be addressed actively if sustained gains are to be made. This includes changing the culture and mindsets of groups of individuals, resulting in behavioural shifts at work and at home, but clearly this need is reduced by greater use of technical controls.

Please click White Paper by Schneider Electric to download the paper

IRVING, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE) Fluor Corporation (NYSE: FLR) announced today that it was awarded an engineering, procurement and construction management (EPCM) contract by Joule to design and build a renewable fuel production facility in New Mexico. Fluor booked the undisclosed contract value in the fourth quarter of 2011.

The facility is intended to test and scale up a process for the commercial production of liquid fuels via Joule's novel technology, which uses sunlight to convert industrial waste carbon dioxide into liquid hydrocarbons, ethanol or chemical products. Joule recently won the 2011 Wall Street Journal Technology Innovation Award in the Energy category in recognition of its ability to surpass the scale, productivity and cost efficiencies of biofuel production processes.

“As a leader in the engineering and construction sector, we believe that the Joule renewable fuel production facility affords Fluor an opportunity to showcase our integrated solutions and assist in the commercialization of this critical technology,” said Lou Del Tufo, Fluor’s senior vice president of Energy & Chemicals and Fluor's Biofuels business team. “We look forward to serving Joule on this project and hope to work with them as they solidify their position as one of the most innovative and forward-thinking technology companies in a rapidly growing global renewable fuels industry.”

Fluor’s Greenville, S.C. office is leading the EPCM services project. Engineering, procurement and site mobilization are currently under way.

National Instruments has announced four new NI Single-Board RIO board-level embedded devices featuring a real-time processor, Spartan-6 field-programmable gate array (FPGA), analog and digital I/O and more built-in peripherals for custom embedded control and monitoring applications. The new devices provide engineers with off-the-shelf FPGA and real-time processor technology through NI LabVIEW while maintaining the custom I/O often required for high-volume deployments through the option of a RIO Mezzanine Card connector. The connector provides direct access to FPGA digital input/output (DIO) lines and certain processor-specific functions for mating custom daughter cards. NI Single-Board RIO alleviates the effort of designing an entire system from scratch so designers can focus on the custom parts of their applications, such as the I/O.

With the new devices, engineers can achieve the shorter time to market of an off-the-shelf system along with the I/O customization offered by in-house designs, providing the best of both worlds. The devices also feature built-in analog I/O so engineers can take advantage of the company’s industry-leading analog expertise in addition to their application-specific circuitry. The devices’ low-cost, small form factor; built-in I/O; real-time processor; and FPGA provide an ideal platform for embedded monitoring and control applications in industries such as medical and energy.

Product Features:

- NI sbRIO-9623: 256 MB of memory, 128 MB RAM, 16 channels of 12-bit analog input, 4 channels of 12-bit analog output, 4 DIO, 96 RMC DIO

- NI sbRIO-9626: 512 MB of memory, 256 MB RAM, 16 channels of 16-bit analog input, 4 channels of 16-bit analog output, 4 DIO, 96 RMC DIO

- NI sbRIO-9633: 256 MB of memory, 128 MB RAM, 16 channels of 12-bit analog input, 4 channels of 12-bit analog output, 28 DIO

- NI sbRIO-9636: 512 MB of memory, 256 MB RAM, 16 channels of 16-bit analog input, 4 channels of 16-bit analog output, 28 DIO

The prospect of adding wireless devices to the process automation architecture is a compelling one from the perspective of tangible business benefits and incremental operational improvements. Availability of robust industrial wireless network protocols, such as WirelessHART and ISA100.11a, for use with IEEE standard technology makes the prospect even more attractive relative to past proprietary, often standalone wireless implementations. This potential is somewhat offset, however, by competition between these standards that leads customers to fear that wireless is emerging as the next platform for the automation fieldbus wars.

Please click to read full report by ARC Advisory Group.

Zurich, Switzerland, March 6, 2012 – ABB, the leading power and automation technology group, has won orders worth more than $70 million from the Saudi Electricity Company (SEC), the national power transmission and distribution operator, to construct five new substations.

ABB will design, supply, install and commission the 110/13.8 kilovolt (kV) substations that will enhance grid capacity and help meet the growing demand for electricity in the Western and Central regions of the country.

“These substations will increase capacity and strengthen the transmission and distribution grid to address growing electricity demand from residential and commercial consumers,” said Brice Koch, head of ABB’s Power Systems division.

Key equipment supplies include the GIS (gas insulated switchgear), transformers, the auxiliary AC/DC system and capacitor banks. ABB will also supply the SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) system, the automation, control and protection equipment, and the global IEC 61850 standard compliant communication system. This will enable centralized remote monitoring and control of power assets located at multiple sites. The substations are expected to be commissioned in 2014.

OPC Foundation and PLCopen have combined their technologies to form one platform and manufacturer-independent information and communication architecture. The mix of OPC Unified Architecture (UA) and IEC 61131-3 is thus the future-safe basis for the realisation of automation tasks.

The objective is to increase the reusability of controller and visualisation modules and their communication and thus to considerably increase efficiency in the engineering process.

Please click to open the Technical Brochure by OPCFoundation.