ABB improves production process for Podilsky Cement, Ukraine

ABB has successfully commissioned integrated electrical, control and automation systems at one of the biggest cement plants in Ukraine.

JSC Podilsky Cement, part of the Irish building material group CRH, is located in Kamyanets-Podilsky, approximately 420km southwest of Kiev and operates the biggest line in Ukraine.

ABB supplied electrical and automation systems including medium-voltage switchgears, intelligent low-voltage (LV) motor control centres (MNSiS MCC), LV variable-speed drives, a plant-wide 800xA process control system, manufacturing execution system (MES), instrumentation, gas analysers, technical coordination, engineering services, site services as well as trainings. Also part of ABB’s overall solution was the design, procurement, support and coordination of third-party equipment including uninterruptable power supply (UPS) and additional instrumentation.

Before modernising the equipment the plant used a wet process for clinker production. After the start-up of the new state-of-the-art line the existing wet production process lines were mothballed since the new dry-process line alone achieves almost the same capacity as the previously existing lines together.

Furthermore, the new cement line is fitted with high-efficiency filtration equipment at all emission points. Emissions, such as particulates and CO2, have been reduced significantly with the commissioning of the new line.

Due to this improvement the project actually is the world’s first Track 2 ‘Joint Implementation’ project registered with the United Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). These projects are mechanisms under the Kyoto Protocol to help countries with binding greenhouse gas emissions targets meet their obligations. “The initial performance of the new plant shows fuel consumption to be less than 50% of the wet process. Power consumption to make clinker shows a reduction of over 15%. The optimization of the new line will improve performance further,” said CRH Europe Material’s Technical Director Eamon Geraghty.