Transnet, South Africa's largest international seaport, avoids costly power outages with the use of AVEVA industrial software.
DURBAN, South Africa – The Port of Durban plays a vital role in South Africa's economy, handling more than 60% of the country's imports and exports. Managed by Transnet National Ports Authority (TNPA), Durban is the largest and busiest maritime terminal on the African continent, strategically located on international shipping routes handling more than one million tonnes of cargo from more than 4,500 commercial vessels. ships every year.
In 2007, a 40-minute national grid power outage related to the cargo disaster, had to close all port operations resulting in 20 - 30 million rand, or more than 1.8 million dollars, in losses. Following this catastrophic event, TNPA's operations management team quickly determined that it was time to improve current technological infrastructure to avoid future power outages that could disrupt critical maritime traffic operations. The team determined that AVEVA technology was key to their operational success.
Goals
- To establish a stable, scalable and flexible operational information and control software platform.
- To mitigate the effect of potential power outages from the national grid.
- To implement standards across the enterprise simplifying future system upgrades.
Challenges
- The port had no effective process for dealing with unexpected power outages from the national grid.
- Its technology infrastructure was out-of-date and unable to scale to keep pace with the port’s expansion plans.
- The lack of redundancy measures put the port at risk of losing critical operations data and device communications.
Solutions
- AVEVATM System Platform, formerly Wonderware
- AVEVATM Edge
- AVEVATM Historian, formerly Wonderware
Results
- The port is now able to bring its electricity back online within minutes instead of hours following national grid power outages.
- Operators now have secure remote access and control of medium voltage (MV) switchgear.
- The system offers the scalability to keep pace with port expansion.
- Rapid data analysis through real-time reporting enables TNPA to identify issues down to the device level.
- The port now has fail-safe operations through extensive redundancy measures.
"Transnet needed plan to keep capacity ahead of demand, and this meant taking a holistic view of the port’s operational needs which went beyond limiting the effect of power outages – we had to look at our current electricity requirements. We had to review the port’s ongoing sand dredging and pumping scheme, our central fire system, the millennium tower which serves as a landmark beacon to incoming ships, and the overall air conditioning design which serviced the buildings.".
Johan Sauerman, Electrical Engineer, TNPA
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