Customer background : 

Danfoss is now the preferred vendor for the Trident Group. To date, there are nearly 400 VLT® drives installed at the group’s plants for a multitude of applications including energy, paper & textiles. 

The Trident Group of Industries is a well-established corporate entity in North India with diverse business interests which include Paper, Energy and Yarn. Abhishek Industries Limited, the group’s flagship company decided to expand the capacity of its paper plant at Barnala, located 300 km north-west of Delhi, in the Punjab State, from 60,000 TPA to 1,500,00 TPA (tonnes per annum), by installing a second paper machine. 

 Application details : 

The technology used here for papermaking utilizes an environmentally friendly mix of wheat straw & wood as the basic raw material. All drives in the existing paper plant were supplied by a major competitor.

For the new plant, there was a requirement for 82 drives, including 10 off high power drives with capacities ranging from 0.25 kW to 350 kW. The applications included drives for the fibre line, wood fibre line, paper machine, digester plant, recovery boiler and other utilities. It was a challenging task for Danfoss to break into a competitor’s stronghold, considering that the main section drives and drive motors had previously been supplied by them.

Value selling pays handsome dividends : 

The Danfoss sales team met the challenge by employing value selling techniques to beat the competition. They adopted a strategy of working closely with the customer from day one and educating him on the benefits of using VLT® drives for the applications under consideration. 

The fact that successful Danfoss drives supplied previously for the group’s textile plant, supplied by LMW, a reputed OEM of textile machinery, also added weight to the offer.

During the last two years, Trident has placed repeat orders for drives, the latest for a 400 kW drive system with soft starter for a forced draft fan in the recovery boiler section. This alone has saved substantial amounts of energy, not only in running the fan but also in primary fuel costs by more efficient control of the boiler. Installing VLT® drives on the boiler ID* and FD** fans, of capacity 350 kW & 400 kW respectively, has resulted in CO2 emission savings of 190 tonnes per annum on each fan. 

Compelling value proposition for customer to consider Danfoss : 

Some of the key selling points include high operating ambient temperatures, and high energy efficiency and lower heat loss figures especially in the >90 kW high capacity range. Commissioning of all drives was completed by March 2008 and Trident has experienced trouble-free operation to date..