Annually on the day of winter solstice the Day of power engineers is celebrated in Ukraine. It is symbolical that the holiday coincides with the shortest day and the longest night in the year when the work of power engineers is most noticeable.
At Zaporizhstal JSC the fuel and energy sector holds an important position. To continuously supply all the divisions of the Works with energy in 1932 the chief power engineer service was brought into being.
Today the service consists of 8 structural subdivisions: water supply shop, thermal power station, air compressor shop, gas shop, network and substation shop, department for repair and maintenance of electrical equipment, chief power engineer department and shop for repair of electrical equipment of metallurgical shops. Power services of the shops provide stable and trouble-free operation of the production equipment which consumes power resources.
The Works’ utilities are a complicated technological body and a huge body in terms of volume including provision of the technological cycle by almost all kinds of power resources. And this is an enormous length of communications, considerably regarding their capacities and unique units and equipment. The power engineers, who provide trouble-free work of such facilities, are highly skilled specialists starting from workers to managers.
Zaporizhstal JSC, as well as the metallurgical branch as a whole, has a triune problem: cost price reduction, improvement of technologies and reduction of harmful environmental effects. Following these goals, from year to year energy consumption of the production of finished rolled products at the Works decreases. So, over the last 10 years this indicator has amounted to 14 %. Operation and maintenance of nature protection objects according to technical requirements have allowed reduction of emissions into atmosphere more than 40 %.
For 11 months of the outgoing year the power engineers have done a considerable job on repair, restoration and reconstruction of power installations and the power equipment of the basic technological units. Thus the basic accent has been made on replacement of outdated equipment by more updated one, and also introduction of new technologies considerably decreasing energy consumption. First of all, construction of the unit for PCI into blast furnaces. Realization of the given project in full, foreseen in the period 2010-2011, will allow to reduce the specific consumption of power and technological fuel during production of pig-iron by more than 50 kg of equivalent fuel (or 194 thousand tons of equivalent fuel per year) at annual production of 3 880 thousand tons of pig-iron. Expected annual reduction of natural gas will amount to more than 300 million cubic meters. Investments into this project will amount to more than 980 million UAH.
More than 13,5 thousand tons of specific power and technological fuel were saved at the expense of a number of already fulfilled measures in 11 months of this year, taking into account the actual use of production capacities. It has allowed reduction of the Works’ expenses by more than 19 million UAH. This is a powerful contribution of the Works’ power engineers to the development of their native enterprise and its future. Putting into operation of such powerful objects as the power complex including boiler unit E120/150 and turbo generator N 35 MW, controllable air separation unit VRU-60 and turbo air blowers TKA-3000/12 confirms the truthfulness of the policy conducted by the owners of the Works, the Chairman of Board Vitaliy Antonovich Satskiy and his team.
Today practically each worker of Zaporizhstal JSC keeps a watchful eye on the situation on the energy market of the country. Such attention to one of the branches of industry is explainable. The competitiveness of the Works’ products in the domestic and world markets depends on the stable work of the energy sector.