AUMA Profinet Actuator Retrofit Increases Plant Sustainability

The combined heat and power plant was originally built in 1976 for fossil fuels. To continue working reliably in the future, the plant operated by Stockholm Exergi, the Swedish capital’s energy supplier, had to be modernised.

A large-scale retrofit project was initiated that will extend the service life of the plant by a further 20 years and help to meet Stockholm’s growing demand for heating and electricity during the cold winter months. The boiler was converted so that it can be operated with renewable fuels such as bio-oil.

Within the scope of this project, AUMA received the order to automate 241 valves. AUMA’s broad portfolio offered the perfect electric actuation solution for each application: SA and SQ actuators with AC 01.2 actuator controls, sometimes combined with GST and GS gearboxes or LE linear units, as well as SAR and SARV modulating actuators for more stringent control requirements. AUMA service experts dismantled the old devices on site and installed and commissioned the new devices.

The actuators are used to control all the processes in the combined heat and power plant, from the fuel supply, feed water and steam systems to flue gas cleaning and feeding into the district heating network. Using AUMA actuators with integral Profinet communications brought major advantages: high reliability thanks to integrated redundancy, easy and flexible integration, and advanced diagnostic options. Overall, the AUMA actuators help to improve the efficiency, reliability and safety of the CHP plant and reduce operating costs.

The project shows how retrofitting state-of-the-art, high-performance valve actuation technology can ensure efficient and sustainable plant operation. As part of AUMA’s global sales and service network, AUMA experts are available worldwide to support plant designers and operators with comprehensive services on retrofit projects of any kind and scale. As in this project, the AUMA experts typically take care of the entire project management, from a detailed analysis of the requirements, through selection and sizing of suitable AUMA actuators, to installation and commissioning on site.