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Tégula, the largest Brazilian manufacturer of concrete tiles, switched to a clean, renewable energy source in place of oil and gas in its main facility in São Paulo.
The system automation uses technology supplied by Siemens Brazil (www.siemens.com.br) with a microprogrammable logic controller, Simatic S7-200, TP177 Micro human-machine interface, and analog and digital expanded input/output. “It is an intelligent system that analyzes the available temperature in the plates and, when it is enough, activates a circulation pump that forces the passage of the water by the solar collectors, and transfers it to the accumulation tank, forming a closed circuit,” says Andre Petroff, Siemens Brazil Simatic Manager.
When the temperature in the tank is above a certain value, the pumps that take hot water for the company’s cure ovens are turned off. After that, the oil or gas heaters are turned off; the pneumatic valves are actuated, stopping the flow of hot water, then the pumps are turned on again. In this way, the system uses the hot water from the accumulation tank. When the water temperature in the accumulation tank falls below a certain value, the process is reversed and the system uses hot water produced by the oil and gas heaters again.
“It is a system that allows better efficiency and cost reduction, because the whole process is controlled by the automation system, without need of intervention by operators,” notes Petroff. “The values of the heaters’ temperature, the accumulation tank, and so on, are controlled by the PLC. The TP177 Micro screens supply an interface for easy operation and monitoring. And the alarms are activated and signaled when some anomaly happens.”
Sílvia Pereira, This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it , is a freelance journalist based in Brazil.
Siemens Brazil
www.siemens.com.br
