Mitsubishi Electric has developed a solar power-operated Pump Controller, which converts DC power to drive the AC induction motor of a water pump and control its functioning. Its current offerings, the E12 series of drives, are more efficient, compact, and easy to maintain. These models have simple operational functions and built-in application-specific dedicated features. The operation capacity of these pump controllers (the FR-D 700 & FR-E 700 series) ranges from 3hp to 10hp.  Mitsubishi Electric also offers an operation capacity of up to 60 hp with its FR-A800 series of drives.

With an ability to work on solar and grid supply, these controllers have advanced built-in features including MPPT (Maximum Power Point Tracking)/ optimized output frequency control, automatic restart functions, dry-run detection, flow rate monitor and remote monitoring functions.

ME VSDs help farms grow their operations

Three-phase power is often unavailable in rural and remote locations, which is a primary reason why farmers struggle to grow their operations. Any farm looking to run larger fans and motors to help increase storage and handling capacity has thus far been forced into using traditional solutions such as rotary phase converters, which are costly, have big capacitor banks and a high amp draw, running up electricity bills and erasing profits.

Mitsubishi Electric VSDs allow a three-phase motor to run from a single-phase electric supply without a phase converter, facilitating greater power and lower energy consumption.

Applications

Umbhaba Estates –South Africa

Adroit recently started a project with a well-known large agricultural enterprise in Mpumalanga, South Africa that supplies around 15% of the South African market with bananas.

The total SA banana market is approximately 250 000 tons annually based on an average of 25 tons per hectare with 10 thousand hectares presently under banana plantations.
The estate has had a significant impact on the regional socio-economic conditions and is a large-scale employer in the agricultural sector in Mpumalanga.

When looking for a SCADA solution they turned to Adroit Technologies to fulfill their monitoring and control system needs.

Using the implemented Adroit system and the Adroit Notify and Command Agent they now have alarms at each plant house and should any disturbances occur, the associated farm manager would be notified immediately via SMS.
Stand Alone Configuration
– 25 000 Scan Points

Golden Macadamia Nuts, South Africa

Golden Macadamia approached Adroit to replace the existing Rockwell RSView32 SCADA with an Adroit system, enabling the system to communicate with various PLC systems. The project entailed the re-engineering of the existing graphics to the Adroit system as well as to do the engineering for an extra drying room that was added to accommodate the growing delivery of the product from the farmers.
Stand Alone Configuration
– 25000 Scan Points

Klawer Winery, South Africa

Nestled in a valley, between the towns of Clanwilliam and Vredendal lies the small farming community of Klawer. Winemaking in the area with its rich soils and south-facing slopes that receives a cool nightly breeze from the nearby Atlantic Ocean, is a tradition that Klawer Wine Cellar continues with pride.

Ana-Digi Systems and Adroit Technologies teamed up for the Klawer project in 2005 to ensure that Klawer remains one of the major players in Cape Town as a leading producer of quality wines. Klawer required a no-nonsense, easy-to-use, reliable solution for their wine tank control system and required world-class support and backup, as it was vitally important to the client who felt a bit vulnerable, due to past experience with poor services.

Klawer is situated in the southern part of Namaqualand, 260 km from Cape Town. Ana-Digi assured the client of their complete support, a promise that they have kept to this day
Stand Alone Configuration
– 300 Scan Points and 1 Remote Client Connection

Kagera Sugar, Tanzania

Located in the North-Western part of Tanzania (close to the Tanzania-Uganda border) was offered for privatization by the Government of Tanzania in December 2001.

Since then, KSL became another member of the Super Group of Companies. Sugarcane growing and sugar production are KSL’s main activities. KSL takes advantage of its geographical location along River Kagera, using it as a source of water in its irrigation scheme. KSL has heavily invested in the Centre Pivot Irrigation System, the use of high-tech Reel Irrigators as well as Overhead Sprinklers The plant has a total of about 8,000 tags and 3,500 scanned I/O. Approximately 80 PID (Proportional Integral Derivative) controllers with associated tuning parameters/trends are monitored by the Adroit system.

Trending is used extensively in the plant system. Operators view trends per plant area and this data is used for control adjustments. Printers are installed at each of the three control rooms specifically for generating event and trend printouts.
Stand Alone Configuration
– 5000 Scan Points and 4 Remote Client Connections

Solar Powered Pump Station, Spain

Why Mitsubishi Electric Inverters?

• Embedded logic control (PLC): A more simple architecture
• Special functionality: Double PID to keep constant the DC voltage on the panels and the pressure of the pipe, at the same time.
• Lower power consumption (OEC)

Possibility to feed the inverter via DC or AC voltage