AUMA has supplied electric actuators with integral Profinet communications for a modernisation project at a wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) operated by Novafos, a major water company serving nine municipalities in eastern Denmark, close to Copenhagen. Novafos operates 17 drinking water plants and 18 sewage treatment plants, and treats around 20 million m³ of water annually. An estimated total of more than 400 AUMA actuators provide reliable valve automation across the Novafos plants.

To operate valves and penstocks on the plant AUMA supplied five SA .2 actuators with intelligent AC controls and Profinet interface, connected to local Profinet controllers in a star topology. Profinet is an Industrial Ethernet standard that combines the robustness of traditional fieldbus networks with the speed and flexibility of Ethernet. It offers full duplex transmission at 100 Mbit/s, comprehensive network diagnostics, automatic configuration, and alarm functions.

“We decided to invest in Profinet communications because Profinet is an open Industrial Ethernet standard with standardised structures,” Plant Manager Søren Præstiin says. “We also appreciate that Profinet is easily configured to provide secure remote access and web services, for both the plant as a whole and individual field devices. We only considered devices with integral Profinet interfaces. AUMA compares favourably with other manufacturers,” Mr. Præstiin explains.

AUMA’s electric actuators with integral Profinet interface meet the requirements of Profinet specification 2.3. An integrated web server allows connection tests, status requests and fault diagnostics to be run quickly and easily. All operating commands and feedback signals are available via Profinet to AUMA AC actuator controls thanks to the standardised device description (GSDML). A Field Device Integration (FDI) package is also available.

Image caption: Jens Ulrik Jensen (left), AUMA sales, and Søren Præstiin (right), plant manager at Malov WWTW