With MAN Diesel as main supplier, Ingemas, the Spanish engineering company and a member of the TSK Group, has developed a turnkey power-plant project for the “Les Ciments du Sahel S.A.” (CDS) cement plant, an investment of €29,500,000.
CDS is located in the Kiréne region of Senegal, Western Africa, some 70 km to the south of Dakar, and has an output of 35 MW from four MAN Diesel 18V32/40 engines (each 9 MWm or 8.75 MWe) at 750 rpm. The heavy fuel oil (HFO) -burning engines will cover the current and future power demands of the cement plant while the installation of four boilers for exhaust-gas heat recovery will cover the steam requirements for both the power plant and the cement-production process.
The cement plant originally began production in 2002 and the introduction of the MAN four-stroke engines ties in with the introduction of a second production line, due to start up this year, facilitating an increase in cement production from 600,000 to 3,000,000 tonnes per year. The four MAN engines replace 16 non-MAN gensets and will cut 55% off existing electricity tariffs. The fourth engine will be delivered for preliminary taking over during the second quarter of 2010.
The power plant
The power plant is designed to work on a 24/7 basis without interruption. It is the cement plant’s sole power source and continuous power and availability are accordingly paramount. The power plant works in island mode, both in isochronous and drop modes as well as through power control.
All civil engineering, structures, systems and equipment have been designed so as to accommodate a potential, fifth MAN engine in the future, depending on production demand. The four new engines run on HFO in normal mode but, for flexibility and to ensure a reliable power supply, are also designed to operate on LFO.
The 18V32/40 units are each integrated with MAN NR34/S turbochargers. As the engines work in island mode and load variations can be high and sharp in the cement plant, so-called “jet assist” devices are fitted externally to the turbochargers. These enable a quick response to such variations by injecting compressed air directly into the compressor wheels of the turbochargers.
Control System
MAN Diesel has developed the control and monitoring system for the new power plant in collaboration with Kuhse, the leading, German manufacturer of process controls for combined heat and power plants and emergency gensets.
The system works by means of network peripherals placed about the plant that collect field information. This is passed on to five PLCs connected by an ethernet network to servers from which optimum operation can be controlled via GUIs. In due course, MAN Diesel will be able to provide supervision and maintenance assistance directly from its headquarters in Augsburg by means of a remote access application.
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