Electrical engineering and automation for a cement terminal at the port of Malmö/Sweden

1 The multi-chamber silo with ship unloading station and bucket conveyor tower

2 Switching room with MS gas-isolated switchgear

3 Electrical installation in the bucket conveyor tower

4 PCS 7 process control system

As a general contractor, Ibau Hamburg led the construction of a cement terminal for Cementa HeidelbergCement Group at the port of Malmö/Sweden (Fig. 1). The multi-chamber silo, which is fed by a mechanical pneumatic ship unloading system, is 100 m high, has a diameter of 26 m and contains 30 000 t of cement. Automatic loading of tanker trucks and wagons is carried out 365 days a year.

Haver & Boecker supplied the complete electrical system and automation for this cement plant. The systems include the following components:

PCS7 process control system with CEMAT, according to HeidelbergCement standard

Gas-insulated medium voltage switchgear, 11 kV

Dry-type transformer 1600 kVA

Low voltage main distributor with compensation

Switching and control cabinet with S7-400/ET 200M, according to HeidelbergCement standard

Electrical grounding and lightning protection

Cable and installation material

IT network and infrastructure

Video monitoring of the loading stations as well as the entrances and exits

Interior and exterior lighting

Engineering and complete electrical installation and start-up

During the planning phase, Haver & Boecker worked in close cooperation with Ibau and the HeidelbergCement Technology Center in Brussels and it was decided that the control room in the multi-chamber silo would be moved to Level 1. This offered the advantage of considerably reduced cable paths through silo walls. Because space for the switching and control cabinets, energy distribution and transformers was limited, Haver & Boecker opted for maintenance-free, gas-insulated medium switchgear (Fig. 2). The electrical installation involved a number of demanding challenges for the personnel. Installation of the cable works and laying the cable in the bucket conveyor tower – from Level 0 to 100 metres – required special cranes and had to be carried out by workers who were not afraid of heights (Fig. 3).

One challenge for the automation systems supplied by Haver & Boecker was adapting the PCS7 process control system to the silo processes so that clear and well-arranged process groups resulted, thus allowing easy operation and rapid fault detection (Fig. 4) The tanker trucks and wagons are automatically loaded according to the shipping orders thanks to the data exchange between the process control unit and the shipping system provided by Cementa AB. By cooperating closely with the HeidelbergCement Technology Center Brussels, the processes were optimised so that the terminal could be operated without operating personnel. After the start-up of the facility, the terminal was successfully handed over to Cementa AB in March, 2012, after almost 2 years of planning and construction work.

Haver & Boecker extends its thanks to the HeidelbergCement Technology Center Brussels, Cementa AB, the terminal operator, Ibau and all subcontractors for the excellent cooperation, without which this successful result in such a short time would not have been possible.

TEXT Wolfgang Schlüpmann, Sales Automation, Haver & Boecker, Oelde/Germany