ABB Drives Provide Flood Protection in the Fens
ABB drives are helping protect 20,000 homes and valuable farmland from flooding by providing control of the pumps at a new pumping station at Wiggenhall St Germans in Cambridgeshire, UK. The pumping station provides water management for the Middle Level District, an area of the Cambridgeshire Fens reclaimed during the 17th Century. Over the centuries, much of the area has sunk to below sea level due to peat shrinkage and soil erosion. The original pumping station was built in 1934 to pump land drainage and flood flows from the Middle Level into the tidal River Ouse.
Aging equipment and a predicted need for a higher capacity meant that a new station was needed. To provide increased capacity, six pumps were chosen instead of the previous four. Each of the six new pump sets can raise 16.66m3/sec to a static head of 4.25m, giving a total capacity of 100m3/sec. This gives the station the capacity to deal with extreme events, although no more than three pumps at a time are expected to run under normal conditions. The Middle Level Commissioners, operators of the station, engaged Atkins to design an electrical system for the new station, including the variable-speed drives (VSDs) to control the six pumps.
A priority for the customer was to have low-voltage equipment. The electrical system chosen was to have an 11kV incomer and use a transformer to step down to 690V. The drives chosen were six 1.2MW ABB industrial drives, fitted as a chassis mount in three Motor Control Centre (MCC) cabinets. The drives are controlled via a SCADA system that is fed data from level meters, to give accurate control and adjustment of the flow. It is essential to avoid over-pumping of water as the drains must be maintained at a minimum level to allow navigation by boats.
Andrew Heron, estimating engineer for MCC builders Technical Control Systems (TCS), was impressed with the level of support offered by ABB. 'The modules were very easy to install, meaning they can also be swapped out quickly for maintenance or to replace a failed drive,' he said. Each ABB drive module is interchangeable and parts can also be swapped from one drive to another. If the ABB drives suffer a borderline failure, they can still run at a reduced power of 800kW, allowing pumping to continue at a lower rate.
Aging equipment and a predicted need for a higher capacity meant that a new station was needed. To provide increased capacity, six pumps were chosen instead of the previous four. Each of the six new pump sets can raise 16.66m3/sec to a static head of 4.25m, giving a total capacity of 100m3/sec. This gives the station the capacity to deal with extreme events, although no more than three pumps at a time are expected to run under normal conditions. The Middle Level Commissioners, operators of the station, engaged Atkins to design an electrical system for the new station, including the variable-speed drives (VSDs) to control the six pumps.
A priority for the customer was to have low-voltage equipment. The electrical system chosen was to have an 11kV incomer and use a transformer to step down to 690V. The drives chosen were six 1.2MW ABB industrial drives, fitted as a chassis mount in three Motor Control Centre (MCC) cabinets. The drives are controlled via a SCADA system that is fed data from level meters, to give accurate control and adjustment of the flow. It is essential to avoid over-pumping of water as the drains must be maintained at a minimum level to allow navigation by boats.
Andrew Heron, estimating engineer for MCC builders Technical Control Systems (TCS), was impressed with the level of support offered by ABB. 'The modules were very easy to install, meaning they can also be swapped out quickly for maintenance or to replace a failed drive,' he said. Each ABB drive module is interchangeable and parts can also be swapped from one drive to another. If the ABB drives suffer a borderline failure, they can still run at a reduced power of 800kW, allowing pumping to continue at a lower rate.
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