ABB has signed a contract with ORION to implement automation and control solutions at Bangladesh’s 100MW Moidhara solar power plant in Mongla, supporting the country’s growing energy requirements and helping the government to achieve its goals of delivering cleaner power generation projects by 2020. 
Collaborating with Energon Renewables (BD) Ltd, a subsidiary of ORION, one of the country’s largest Independent Power Producers (IPP), the two companies will work closely to combine their expertise and support Bangladesh in its energy transition journey.
Leveraging ABB Ability Symphony Plus distributed control system technology (DCS), ABB will implement a fully integrated automation and electrical system for control and monitoring of the entire plant, including the Weather Monitoring Station, maximising plant efficiency and reliability, and driving gains in performance, productivity and safety throughout lifecycle operations.
With 95% of Bangladesh’s power generation stemming from gas, diesel and coal, this 100MW plant, which is the equivalent to power produced by over 90,000 tons of coal a year, marks a step-change in generating energy from renewable sources, and will act as a blueprint to help to define a road map for a further 1,000MW worth of solar power project developments across the country.
Danilo Moresco, head of ABB Power and Water, Energy Industries said, “This project is the first of its kind in Bangladesh. Through it, we will enable clean power to be supplied to residents and industry alike, helping the government to meet its global benchmarks of energy through renewable sources.”
Moresco continued “With the ABB Ability distributed control system (DCS) acting as common digital backbone offering total visibility of plant operations, assets and maintenance in real time, Energon will be able to optimise control strategies, processes and ultimately maximise plant availability, as well as benefit from collaboration via remote monitoring.”
ABB will also supply the complete electrical solution comprising of transformers, RMUs and 33/132 kV substation along with the SCADA system communicating to the Bangladesh Power Grid via IEC 60870-5-104 communication protocol.
Salman Obaidul Karim, Managing Director for ORION comments, “Rapid industrialization in Bangladesh has seen the demand for power sharply increase and this continues to grow daily. The total generation capacity of the country is 20,000MW, yet currently only 188MW is delivered from renewable sources. With this new solar project, we hope to increase this and help the country meet its target of 2,000MW generated through renewable sources by 2020.”
Energon will use efficient “mono Perc” cells to capture solar rays and convert to power which would be then supplied at 132 kV Alternative Current (AC) voltage to the main grid in Mongla, 13km away. Mono Perc cells give the highest efficiency in generating power among other solar cells available in the market. The plant is expected to start generating electricity by end of 2020.
ABB has been the No 1 market leader in the Global Distributed Control System market for 20 consecutive years. There are more than 7,000 ABB Ability Symphony Plus DCS installations currently in operation all over the world, more than 5,000 of which are in power and water applications.
