By Juha Alamäki, Operations Manager, ABB Oy The advent of the internet era has enabled Collaborative Operations to rapidly emerge. It encompasses performance management, remote monitoring and analytics to improve availability, performance and quality, whilst ensuring cyber security. It also allows pulp and paper mills to leverage their expertise by using the data-driven ecosystem that is created through collaborative operations engagement, connecting people within their enterprise-wide production facilities and headquarters, and to suppliers’ technology and global expertise. Metsä Group’s new bioproduct mill, Metsä Fibre in Äänekoski, Finland, has connected the ABB electrical systems installed at the mill to the ABB Ability™ Collaborative Operations solutions portfolio. The solutions include remote monitoring of electrical systems using cloud services, and remote access to ABB experts 24/7, with the aim of raising performance and reliability of the electrical systems to a new level. OPERATIONAL NEEDS Metsä Group’s bioproduct mill has an output of over 1.3 million tons of pulp per year. It started up in August 2017, and features the highest levels of energy, material and environment efficiency in the world. The electricity self-sufficiency of the bioproduct mill is some 240%. The mill produces 1.8 TWh of electricity per year – the equivalent of 2.5% of total electricity REMOTE MONITORING SYSTEMS WORLD PULP&PAPER 32 Remotely monitoring functionality and availability of Metsä Group’s bioproduct mill production throughout Finland. Such cost and environment efficiency requires stable and reliable process control that helps keep production costs down – for instance, by minimising raw material usage and ensuring low energy consumption. In addition to outstanding process control, a reliable power system helps to avoid process disturbances. The supervision of a large amount of electrical equipment and related technical data creates an additional issue for the mill operation and maintenance personnel that is unique in today’s mills. Therefore, a system that can locate & identify any early warning signals from the electrical equipment before failure, to give maintenance people time to address the problem before it comes out, is of high value to the customer. However, if a shutdown is required to fix the problem, the customer preference is to have time for a planned, controlled a system that can locate & identify any early warning signals from the electrical equipment before failure… is of high value to the customer. Figure 1. A typical pulp mill power system. KEY EQUIPMENT IN A PULP MILL POWER SYSTEM • High voltage switchgear for grid connection (Mill Substation) - 110kV gas insulated switchgear - Protection relay system • Medium voltage switchgear units for plant distribution (33kV Power Distribution) - Four 33kV gas insulated switchgear - Protection relay system • Low voltage system for plant process power supply and distribution - Low voltage 690V and 400V motor control centers – 1000 meters – for 2400 motors - Protection relays system on incomers - Low voltage breakers (ACB’s) – also connected to collaborative operations system • Totally the mill power distribution control and monitoring system includes close to 200 protection relays connected to collaborative operations system with IEC 61850 • Distribution transformers • High voltage motors for large feed water pumps • Low voltage motors for rotating equipment on the process • Variable speed drives to enable accurate process control and energy savings - Over 700 low voltage drives for accurate process control - medium voltage drives for feed water pumps • Uninterruptible power supply – UPS - 14 UPS systems in different process areas Mill recovery boiler Steam turbine generator Process consumers Pumps and fans 110 kV Mill bubstation – Grid connection 33 kV Power Distribution system