ABB India has provided complete electrification, drives & automation solutions for a 24-km conveyer system of JSW Group.
To ensure timely, cost-effective, and safe transportation of iron ore with minimal impact on the environment, JSW, one of India’s largest private sector steel companies, set up the world’s longest conveyor system at one of their plants in Bellary, Karnataka.
ABB was commissioned to provide complete electrification, drives & automation solutions for this conveyor system through its ‘Made in India’ products manufactured in the local factories.
The key requirement of the project was system design, product reliability and life cycle support. The system consists of three flights of pipe conveyor to transport iron ore from Nandihalli yard to JSW site at Toranagallu in Bellary, Karnataka.
Project scope
For the project, ABB supplied complete medium voltage switchgear panels for their four substations, ACS880 low voltage high power single drive & parallel connected drive, engineered AMI series of low voltage motor, converter duty transformer and hot redundant PLC and SCADA solutions for the conveyors, through OEMs Macmet, FLS & LNVT.
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Cutting down road trips
Through this pipe conveyor system, JSW has cut down nearly 3,000 road trips required for the transportation of the iron ore. This not only solves the critical issue of transportation of raw material from mining to processing sites, but also makes the process more sustainable by significantly reducing carbon emissions caused by road transportation.
Transportation of iron ore by road resulted in hefty costs, unavoidable delays and loss of material due to breakdowns and slippage. The pipe conveyor system has achieved reduced inbound logistics costs, contained material losses, improved safety, and minimized carbon footprint. There have been zero road accidents after this pipe conveyor got commissioned.
Challenging project execution
“The project execution was quite challenging with the 24-km stretch being executed by three conveyor OEMs,” said Anoop Anand, President, System Drives, Motion Business, ABB India. “Our team had packaged the complete solution for the conveyor system, including low voltage motors, drives and overall control automation. Implementing some of the project’s special automation requirements at our test facility and replicating them on site for the customer’s satisfaction was a very enriching experience for the team,” he added.
Photographs (source: ABB India) are actual project/product images.
