Las Tunas, Cuba.- The initiative launched in mid-2018, which is entitled Advanced Automation for the processing and refining of steel (AA-Elacero) seeks to reduce energy consumption in a key area of the plant such as the electric arc furnace, the spoon oven and the electrical substation. Besides, 16 researchers from Acinox Las Tunas, as well as from the Integral Automation Company (Cedai), Copextel and the Provincial Center of Electro-medicine, integrate the project. Specialists from the universities of Oriente, in Santiago de Cuba, the Technological José Antonio Echeverría (Havana), and the Central (Marta Abreu),in the province of Santa Clara, participate as well.
The project is already accomplished with the conclusion of two master's theses in Energy Efficiency and three others in Industrial Engineering, as well as four doctorates and 16 master's degrees in Automation, said its coordinator, Doctor of Science, Guillermo González Yero.
The seminar that they held for two days in the rooms of Las Tunas Hotel, he added, was aimed to boost each of the investigations, adjusting them to the purposes of the project. "The country's innovation policy favors integration between universities, research centers and the business sector, to put science into production, he concluded."
The Doctor of Science Israel Francisco Benítez Pina, from the Department of Automatic Control of the Universidad de Oriente who coordinates the Master of Automatics meant that from this moment a crucial stage begins since each of the researchers must establish clear objectives. They must debug the details from the methodological and practical point of view, with a view to successfully concluding within two years.
The attendance during the debates of the executives of the entities involved, as well as of operators of the spaces that are being investigated, attests that the material support for innovation in function of solving specific problems of the factory is interpreted not as an expense, but as an investment.
More than 40 percent of all Acinox Las Tunas' economic spending goes to energy-related components. Preliminary estimates indicate that if it were possible to reduce only the 15 percent those expenditures, maintaining current production levels, it would mean an annual saving of 1.8 million dollars.
Together with Antillana de Acero, in Havana, Acinox Las Tunas is responsible for the production of carbon steel in Cuba. It is a manufacturing process that requires high energy consumption and other associated elements, such as electrodes and refractory. Only Las Tunas factory accounts for one-third of all the electricity consumed by the Sidero-mechanics Business Group (Gesime) in one year, an amount that exceeds the electrical expenditure of the rest of the territory in more than 20 gigawatts/hour in that same period.
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