Harnessing the power of sugar
Customer Company Size
Large Corporate
Region
- Pacific
Country
- Australia
Product
- EcoStruxure Plant
- Modicon M580 Safety PLCs
- AVEVA’s Citect SCADA software
Tech Stack
- IoT
- SCADA
Implementation Scale
- Enterprise-wide Deployment
Impact Metrics
- Productivity Improvements
- Cost Savings
- Environmental Impact Reduction
Technology Category
- Application Infrastructure & Middleware - API Integration & Management
Applicable Industries
- Agriculture
- Renewable Energy
Applicable Functions
- Process Manufacturing
- Maintenance
Use Cases
- Process Control & Optimization
- Predictive Maintenance
Services
- System Integration
- Software Design & Engineering Services
About The Customer
Wilmar Sugar Australia is the country’s leading manufacturer of raw sugar. The company owns and operates eight sugar mills in Queensland, crushing about 15.5 million tonnes of sugarcane each year to produce more than two million tonnes of raw sugar. Wilmar is also Australia’s leading producer of renewable energy from biomass. Electricity is generated at each mill in on-site industrial boilers by burning bagasse – the fibrous material left over after the juice has been extracted from sugarcane. Bagasse is burned at temperatures of up to 800oC to produce steam. High-pressure steam is used to drive alternator turbines, generating power for the milling process and the electricity grid. Combined, Wilmar’s eight mills produce about 600,000 megawatt hours of electricity a year, with significant quantities exported to the Queensland power grid. Annually, Wilmar exports enough electricity to power more than 80,000 Australian homes for a year.
The Challenge
Wilmar Sugar Australia, the country's leading manufacturer of raw sugar, operates eight sugar mills in Queensland. The company crushes about 15.5 million tonnes of sugarcane each year, producing more than two million tonnes of raw sugar. Wilmar is also Australia’s leading producer of renewable energy from biomass. The company's Invicta Mill, one of Australia's largest sugar mills, required a major upgrade of its boiler control system to ensure the ongoing safety and reliability of the site’s power production capabilities. The existing boiler control system equipment was reaching its end of life and required replacing. An upgrade was planned to simplify the control systems and embed safety procedures into the system, itself. The ideal solution was a control system that would enable Wilmar to have a complete view of all the factory’s systems in one easy-to-use interface.
The Solution
Wilmar chose to install new Schneider Electric Modicon M580 Safety PLCs at its Invicta Mill, replacing multiple controllers which were previously monitored individually. The M580 Safety PLCs use the same software tools, wiring methods, and X80 I/O structure as the M580 ePAC, also in use at Wilmar factories. This reduces the spare parts inventory and maintenance costs. AVEVA’s Citect SCADA software provides the user-interface for factory controls at Wilmar’s mills. With the help of mobile devices, the software enables remote access to the systems, so even when employees are not on site, they can receive alerts, or log into the system to check equipment. This means production personnel are able to make immediate adjustments to the sugar milling process with ease and accuracy, whether they are on or off site. At the heart of the Schneider Electric solution is the EcoStruxure Plant architecture. This architecture includes Schneider Electric protection relays, graphical interfaces as well as Citect SCADA software which brings all the control systems together, creating a unified picture of exactly what equipment is running and how efficiently. The seamlessly integrated EcoStruxure Plant architecture creates a system which operates efficiently and robustly, with minimal input.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
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