MechChem Africa March-April 2025

⎪ PowerGen,PetroChem and Sustainable energy management ⎪

investment in additional power line capacity, and challenges in wheeling that electricity to an end-user for use in an electrode boiler. On site, Williams also points out that, there is a big disparity between the space available for the number of solar panels required to offset the megawatts of energy input needed to displace solid, liquid or gas fuel in steam boilers: “24/7 boiler operations are looking at three to four times the surface area. If these are using five megawatts, they will probably need 15 to 20 megawatts. When the sun is shining, they will have to generate the extra energy and put it into battery storage. That comes at a substantial cost, but the space is simply not available in most cases,” he argues. The phased approach AES is working with some clients to imple ment a phased approach. First is adapting their manufacturing processes to use less steam. A 10% drop in steam usage equates to a 10% reduction in fuel and an immediate 10% carbon footprint improvement. Next is outsourcing their steam boiler operations and maintenance to a seasoned industry expert such as AES to further in crease energy plant fuel efficiency, another carbon saving. When companies can upgrade, Williams proposes running boilers on different fuels to better understand the technology and the fuel supply marketplace: “One of our food sector clients is using biogas, heavy

Outsourcing steam boiler operations and maintenance to a seasoned industry expert such as AES can further increase energy plant fuel efficiency.

furnace oil and biomass. This creates a lot of redundancy and opportunities for them to shift demand between those assets, provid ing substantial risk mitigation and flexibility on the fuel side,” he explains. “We recommend a phased carbon reduc tion approach, as well as trialling various fuel source options to see which fits best in terms of operational and financial viability.

years of operation, when it is too late to change suppliers or even claim damages from them. NEC is one of the very few suppliers that can manufacture individually VPI-stator bars worldwide, and it has been doing so for decades, making it a very reliable and trustworthy technical choice. M&C has its own testing capabilities in its factory, but this stator size requires exceptional, expensive and large test equip ment to perform the optimum tests and guarantee product quality. For this purpose, M&C has partnerships with specialist local high-voltage test equipment service provid ers. HV Testing and 50 kV resonant high voltage test set are among them. M&C a division of ACTOM (Pty) Ltd, is BEE accredited and offers full on- and off-site electromechanical services and repairs of power generation equipment, medium and low voltage ac and dc motors, transformers and coil manufacture, as well as the full range of engineering, testing, diagnostics, balancing and maintenance services. www.mandc.co.za The need for a reduced carbon footprint – and the taxes associated with enforcing this – are an unequivocal rallying call to manufacturing and industrial companies to get their houses in order, before they are left behind. "AES is there to assist every step of the way,” Williams concludes. www.aes-africa.com

July 2024 saw Marthinusen & Coutts (M&C), complete a one-year project for Sasol to rewind a 75 MVA BBC (Brown, Boveri & Cie) synchronous generator sta tor. According to Dominik Krob, Project Manager at M&C, “This type of generator, especially the generator windings, eventu ally reaches its end of life and needs to be rewound, which is where we come in. So instead of replacing the entire machine with a new one, the customer decided to rewind M&C completes 75 MVA stator motor rewind this particular stator.” This generator is a critical component of a SASOL power generation system. “There are several industrial manufacturing plants in South Africa, and the manufacturing in dustry has suffered severe losses during the load shedding period in our country. Many of these manufacturers, therefore, generate their power in-house to be independent of the grid,” Krob adds.

With M&C having close working rela tions with crucial parts suppliers, National Electric Coil in the United States, it was seen as the most likely partner able to meet the tight deadlines on this project. NEC developed a unique system with individually vacuum-pressure-impregnated (VPI) stator bars and coils, individually wrapped with the NECCO Bond-ETM prov en insulation system, and meeting every National and International Standard. While there are numerous stator bar and coil suppliers globally, their quality is not guaranteed. Furthermore, quality issues often reveal themselves only after several

M&C Winders busy fitting bottom stator bars.

March-April 2025 • MechChem Africa ¦ 17