ABB donates drives, motors and PLCs to Monash

ABB has donated more than $150,000 in drives, motors and PLC equipment to the Electrical Power Engineering (EPE) Laboratory, located at the Clayton campus of Monash University. The university now offers new learning opportunities for students in the area of electricity generation.

In early October, the Department of Electrical and Computer Systems Engineering at Monash University played host to guests at the official opening of its recently upgraded EPE Laboratory at its Clayton campus. The upgrade was made possible due to a substantial equipment donation by ABB in Australia and through the hard work of many technical experts from Monash University, ABB and a number of volunteers.

Professor Jamie Evans, head of the Department of Electrical and Computer Systems Engineering (ECSE) at Monash University, officially opened the upgraded EPE Laboratory. Equipment donated by ABB included 8 x DCS550 DC drives, 16 x AC500 eco PLCs, 8 x ABB baldor electric motors and 8 x ACSM1 servo drives combined with regenerative units, with full braking power. In order to maintain clean power with very low harmonic content, the regenerative units control the line side power factor to unity.

ECSE’s Dr Tadeusz Czaszejko spoke about how he had originally approached ABB in 2012 with the idea of upgrading the lab. “The ABB donation provided the momentum to undertake a much more ambitious upgrade. Monash University now has one of the most advanced power electronics labs of any university in Australia,” said Dr Czaszejko.

The upgraded lab now offers a wide range of new learning possibilities for electrical engineering students, particularly in relation to the generation of electricity and how it behaves. The students are able to run various theoretical calculations, then use the equipment in the lab to simulate how various applications actually work in practice.

Students can also simulate the adding of a generator to the electric grid, as well as the transferral of surplus electricity, generated from renewable energy sources such as photovoltaic cells, back into the grid.