Under the new contract, i.Power Solutions will design, supply and commission the control system for the mine’s preparation plant, ancillary equipment and some OEM equipment.
According to Tim Haight, i.Power Solutions’ director of marketing, the electrical design will employ a variety of advanced communications methods including using wireless Ethernet to enable bulldozers to view plant operations via on board Citect stations and the use of terminal server technologies in some non-critical areas.
This is the second package for the Mt Arthur North mine that has been awarded to i.Power Solutions in almost as many months.
In late March, i.Power Solutions was awarded a multi-million dollar contract to provide the system electrics including low voltage switchboards, MCCs and a 40 metre switchroom. Cumulatively, both projects take the total work order to over $4 million.
With planned production for the greenfields site earmarked for the end of this calendar year, Mr Haight said that i.Power Solutions’ track record, manufacturing capacity, industry position as a turnkey solutions provider and reputation as a quality systems integrator contributed to the company’s securing two of Mt Arthur North’s foremost electrical packages.
“These are significant projects for the company and have obvious synergies. Both projects will be designed, manufactured and commissioned at our corporate office and manufacturing facility in Brisbane with a dedicated integrated project team monitoring work from the design phase through to production. Some work will also be administered from our Sydney office including site support subsequent to commissioning.
“We are proud of our capacity to engineer projects of this size. The systems package alone is one of the largest controls engineering projects that has been undertaken in the company’s one year history,” Haight said.
