BRAZILIAN BIOENERGY PROJECTS FOCUS ON PROFIBUS

BRAZILIAN BIOENERGY PROJECTS FOCUS ON PROFIBUS: As a result of the big expansion in bioenergy projects - sugar and ethanol production combined with electrical energy co-generation and the creation of new sugar cane plantations - PROFIBUS is playing a big role in the automation of three new industrial plants in Brazil. SMAR was selected as the supplier for being able to offer a complete automation and control solution for mega-projects like the three mentioned below.

All three started up in time for the new sugar crop, totally in automatic control mode and prioritizing ethanol production first. Soon after that, production was switched to VHP (very high polarity) sugar. To attain this degree of success detailed planning was necessary, including Factory Acceptance Tests (FAT) and Site Acceptance Tests (SAT). These depended on the efforts of all the personnel involved, like operators, maintenance technicians, process team, supervisors and managers, together with the proven competence of the construction companies and the technical support of the Santelisa Vale corporate team.

SMAR provided extensive support throughout the projects, from the specification and pre-definition of control loops to the design of control architectures and individual nets. For example, AS-i, PROFIBUS DP and PROFIBUS PA were used. The plants use a total of about 1,200 networks and more than 35,000 supervision points.

Now, SMAR is considering the clients' needs regarding a second phase of investment and is already working on projects relating to the co-generation of electrical power. SMAR adds: "When bad news prevails and pessimism is almost everywhere, the moment we visit these three fantastic projects, we recall William Wards famous proverb: 'The pessimist complains about the wind, the optimist waits that it changes, the realist adjusts the sails'." brazil@profibus.com

Tropical Bioenergia: This company, located in the Edia municipality (GO), is a joint venture between the Santelisa Vale Group, the Maeda Group - one of the largest Brazilian cotton producers - and British Petroleum. In addition to meeting production and productivity goals, attention was focused on maintaining high safety standards, which, according to industrial manager, Eng. Ana Cristina, were adopted in accordance with British Petroleum procedures. The control architecture uses Profibus PA, Profibus DP and AS-i and includes 15 operator stations (with multiple monitors and redundant servers), an engineering station and a maintenance workstation. Process control data can be exported via the web. "In spite of the normal adjustments at startup, the decision to use PROFIBUS brought large benefits to the automation team as well as to the operators, due to the excellent cooperation between SMAR and the Tropical technical teams," said Ms. Ana Cristina Balan Oliveira Roque, Tropical Bioenergia industrial manager.

Mega-project team 1: Fernando Csar Afonso, Production Assistant; Juliano Paiva, Automation Technician; Ana Cristina Balan Oliveira Roque, Industrial Manager; Marcos Tlio Campos Oliveira, Automation Technician; Milton Fernando de Oliveira, Production Assistant.

CNAA Corporation Group: In March of last year, Santelisa Vale in association with a group of investors, established CNAA, a company responsible for new projects in Brazil. The company is made up of Santelisa Vale, Global Foods, Goldman Sachs, Discovery Capital and Carlyle/Riverstone. CNNA has since constructed two new production units - at Central Itumbiara de Bioenergia located in the state of Goias and Ituiutaba Bioenergia, in the state of Minas Gerais. Eng. der Jos Biazi, instrumentation chief for Itumbiara said: "In spite of having little experience of digital nets, the tools provided by SMAR allowed us to start operations without problems, even though the instrumentation and control area was the last to be completed." Added Eng. Incio Alves Pereira, Itumbiara Bioenergia industrial manager: "Start up was very smooth ... way beyond expectations!"

Mega-project Team 2, at Itumbiara: Jos Roberto Sponchiado, SMAR Sales Manager; Incio Pereira, Itumbiara Industria; Marcos Siqueira, SMAR Sales Manager; der Biazi, Itumbiara Automation Supervisor

Font: PROFINEWS 27 - North American Edition

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