Salares Norte, in the Atacama Desert in the Andes in Chile adopted ABB Ability Genix. Above, construction continues at the site. (Photo: ABB)
Gold Fields adopted ABB’s Ability Genix Industrial Analytics and AI suite for the Salares Norte project in Chile. The suite will support the remote monitoring operations from an office complex roughly 1,300 km from the mine.
The suite answers challenges posed by the isolation of the mine, Gold Fields said. “This is critical to this project due to its remote location, with the nearest town being 180 km away, the altitude of the project and adverse weather conditions, which make site access and fieldwork challenging,” said Max Combes, project director.
“It demanded a solution for the remote monitoring center in Santiago that could integrate and contextualize information from many systems, including some common to Chile, as well as perform data analytics,” he said. “ABB is already a proven digital partner and ABB Ability Genix will further unlock the power of data at this project.”
ABB Ability Genix connects operational, business and engineering systems. It uses advanced analytics to generate actionable information to drive improvements and decision making.
ABB has already deployed to the site the ABB Ability MineOptimize solution to supply an integrated power and automation system comprising six electrical rooms and a suite of process and power controls, all under an ABB Ability System 800xA distributed control system. The project scope also includes a dynamic process simulator, which reviews plant control logics, reducing commissioning times and assisting with training.
