Paper cuts through energy costs

The machine is part of a Û550 million investment undertaken by the Portucel-Soporcel Group at its industrial complex in Setœbal, Portugal. Central to the company's growth plan is the largest and most sophisticated paper-making machine in the world. Measuring over 11m wide, it can produce 80 tonnes of quality non-coated paper per hour - or 500,000 a year - at a speed of 1,800m/min. The challenges of building the new factory and building and installing the new machine were met by a range of engineering companies. Among them, WEG was selected to supply the electric motors that are incorporated into the paper-making machine. The fact that WEG operates the only manufacturing plant for electric motors in Portugal, and has an extensive industrial support platform for Europe were key factors in its choice as motor supplier for the project, WEG said. WEG supplied 650 low voltage W21 motors and 16 medium voltage 6 kV motors, with capacities ranging from 0.37kW up to 2,800kW. The processing functions in the new factory are controlled by a dedicated distributed control system. A Profibus fieldbus network is used to control motors and instrumentation. Control of the electrical system within the factory is via a SCADA system, the most up-to-date of its type for this type of monitoring and control. The factory is achieving much-improved energy efficiency levels compared with the company's previous projects - due in part to the large number (650) of WEG W21 high efficiency motors used on the new paper-making machine. As well as saving energy, the WEG motors are also playing a major role in achieving maximum uptime at the facility. "The motors fully satisfy our usage requirements, and up to now there have been no problems to report," said Carlos Pinto of Portucel-Soporcel. "They were delivered on time and met our special requirements in terms of special paint finish and oversized bearings. We were also impressed with the inverter-duty coils in the W21 motors that allow operation with frequency variation in motors from 45kW. "WEG also did the job for us on the largest motors supplied, 2,800kW medium voltage units. These have proved to be the best choice for driving the vacuum pumps in the paper-making process. They have solved the problem of pump start-up, which previously was very difficult, and are ensuring correct operation of what is one of the most important operations in the paper producing process."