Rotork electric valve control helps refresh Coca-Cola’s environmental credentials

When Coca-Cola Enterprises (CCE) needed to boost efficiency and lower energy costs at the largest soft drinks production plant in Europe, they turned to Rotork's CVA electric control valve actuation technology for the solution.

Rotork CVA electric control valve actuation technology helps Coca-Cola to increase efficiency and reduce energy costs

CCE has invested more than £100 million over the last five years at their Wakefield site – the largest soft drinks production plant in Europe – as part of a longterm commitment to local manufacturing and the development of new technologies. Since installing and acting on Energy Monitoring system data, the company has reduced electricity consumption at Wakefield by an impressive 13 per cent since 2009.

 

An important part of CCE's plan involves saving the on-going cost of providing and maintaining an instrument air supply for traditional pneumatic control valve actuation. This is being actioned at Wakefield with the introduction of the Rotork CVA control valve actuator, to perform modulating and failsafe valve duties.

CVA actuators introduce continuous, repeatable modulating electrical control

Prior to the introduction of the CVA, the modulating performance of electric actuators could not match the performance of pneumatic control valves. CVA actuators have introduced continuous, repeatable modulating electrical control with a programmable fail to position option. Operating on an industry standard 4-20mA control signal or digital network the resolution, repeatability and hysteresis performance is quoted at <0.1% of full scale, offering suitability for the most demanding applications.

Mechanical features include Rotork’s proven ‘double-sealed’ enclosure, which permanently protects internal electrical components from the effects of the operating atmosphere. The IP68 dust tight, watertight and temporarily submersible enclosure is universal to all models in the CVA range. That includes those with hazardous area approvals. On loss of mains power, built-in super-capacitors allow the actuator to move the valve to a desired position, programmable as open, close, any intermediate position or stay-put.

CVA actuators utilise Rotork’s innovative and well established ‘non-intrusive’ communication technology for actuator programming and adjustment. Actuator set-up and configuration is performed using a Bluetooth enabled PDA or PC running Rotork Enlight software. Every CVA incorporates an onboard data logger, enabling operational data such as valve torque profiles, dwell times, actuator events and statistics to be downloaded for detailed investigation and diagnosis. After analysis, any required configuration changes can be uploaded into to the actuator.

Digital control network options include HART, Modbus and Profibus protocols. Thus facilitating enhanced installed economy and giving the CVA the increased ability to dovetail into existing asset management systems. The all-electric design, which can be specified for single-phase AC or DC supplies, also simplifies the process of retrofitting actuators onto existing valves, which has been performed at Wakefield by Rotork’s specialist Site Services Division.

A cheaper alternative to pneumatic control valves

Andy Reynolds, Automation Engineer at the Wakefield plant, said: “We were looking for an alternative to pneumatic control valves in order to remove the need for compressed air as much as possible in the area and reduce costs. Based on average air usage of 2m3/hr for a 3” control valve at £0.05 per m3, the running cost would be £870 per annum. The CVA actuator, using an average of 10 Watts at £0.15/kW, would cost £13 for the same period. This represents a minimum saving of £857 per annum per valve, as this figure does not take into consideration any leaks in the system.

“Up to now, electrically actuated valves could not respond fast enough to maintain good pressure control in the bottle filling machine. Rotork were confident that their CVA actuator would not only give a similar performance to our existing valve, but would also be cheaper to run.”

For more information visit www.rotork.com/en.