Energy efficiency: Products and solutions improving productivity for ABB customers

The development and manufacture of energy efficient products, systems and services is central to what ABB offers its customers. Improving efficiency, and reducing energy use, emissions and costs, have become ever more important in many countries such as India.

For ABB, the manufacture of energy-efficient products for utilities, industry, transportation and infrastructure is both a cornerstone of the Group’s Sustainability Objectives and a practical contribution that the company can make towards realizing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, in particular the targets covering sustainable cities and communities and climate change.

In India, ABB has a wide portfolio of products, systems and services, including industry-specific solutions, to make industrial operations safe, reliable and more efficient. In the food and beverage sector – one of ABB’s key areas of focus globally – the company and its customers have notched up some notable successes.

For example, after carrying out a detailed study, ABB delivered a power quality solution to PepsiCo in India, reducing electricity bills at one of its bottling plants by 5 to 10 percent annually, and delivering a return on investment of less than two years. ABB’s automation and control systems have also ensured the uninterrupted processing of milk by Amul, the world’s largest dairy cooperative, and enabled it to increase its capacity significantly to 10 million liters a day.

The health of the cement and steel sectors are the bedrock and indicators of infrastructure and economic growth. ABB technologies have had a significant contribution in accelerating growth and efficiencies in the two sectors, with 50 percent of the cement plants commissioned in the last five years running on ABB control systems, producing the equivalent of 35 million tons annually. An electrical and automation package for one of the country’s largest blast furnaces has helped to increase the efficiency and double the hot metal production for one of the country’s leading steel producers.

When Asia Paints, Asia’s third largest paint company, set up a greenfield site, it selected ABB to provide an end-to-end solution that controls and integrates plant processes from raw material receipt, storage and transportation to paint manufacture and packing. The Manufacturing Execution Systems and Distributed Control Systems supplied by ABB increased plant efficiency and productivity, as well as ensuring greater flexibility and agility throughout the production processes of polymer, resin, water and solvent based paints. The system, with its increased reliability, ultimately results in savings and better material usage.

Turning to another industry, India is the world’s fourth largest oil consumer and third largest oil importer in the world, so making every drop count is imperative. ABB has designed, engineered and executed an integrated information management system for India’s single largest oil production network connecting 6,500 production wells, over 175 control rooms, 15 data centers, with more than 1,100 km of cabling – covering 60 percent of India’s domestic oil production.

Raising energy efficiency at key sites like these are reducing costly and wasteful losses, and supporting the growth of the Indian economy.