AR Madhusudan, President and Local Division Manager – Drive Products, ABB India Ltd
- What are the key factors driving the growth of the HVACR industry in India, and how is ABB positioned to leverage these opportunities?
India has been growing rapidly in terms of both industries and infrastructure. This growth is also driving the HVACR industry in the country, as one of the most critical aspects across buildings, facilities and infrastructure is efficient and accurate heating, cooling and ventilation. As India has set ambitious net zero targets, industries are consistently working towards reducing their carbon emissions and the country is also steadily strengthening its energy efficiency regulations. With this, ABB is very well-positioned with a strong portfolio of products and technology that are consistently meeting the energy efficiency and operational needs of a wide range of buildings and facilities, including data centers, hospitals, institutions, airports, metros, tunnels and manufacturing facilities.
- How do ABB’s variable speed drives, motors, and PLCs enhance energy efficiency and sustainability in HVACR systems?
Most buildings and facilities need to continually maintain the required temperatures and humidity to ensure optimal climate control and ventilation. With changing outdoor temperatures and varying process or people-driven demands, these systems can be very energy-intensive as they are constantly in operation. Now, several applications in HVACR systems like fans, compressors and pumps are driven by electric motors. By utilizing high-efficiency motors and pairing a motor with a drive, buildings can ensure optimal climate control while reducing power consumption.
Variable speed drives (VSDs) help regulate motor speeds based on real-time environmental conditions rather than running the motors at full speed all the time. This can typically decrease energy consumption by up to 25% or more. ABB offers a wide range of drives, which also includes drives with built-in HVACR-dedicated features, like pre-programmed control for common HVACR applications and built-in protection like fireman’s override. Further, these motor-drive systems can be paired with programmable logic controllers (PLCs), which can actively monitor HVACR components in real time, ensuring optimal performance and energy savings and enabling data-driven control.
- Can you share insights into some of ABB’s noteworthy projects, such as the Statue of Unity, and their impact on showcasing ABB’s capabilities?
ABB’s drive technology has been playing a crucial role in supporting some of the country’s key infrastructure projects. For example, ABB’s drives are installed for the prestigious Statue of Unity project – world’s tallest statue. Furthermore, ABB’s HVACR and our ultra-low harmonic drives are supporting the Chennai metro line’s ventilation system and platform cooling while ensuring a clean power network. ABB drives are ensuring safe ventilation for Asia’s longest road tunnel – Chenani-Nashri tunnel in Jammu and Kashmir.
These projects highlight our continued focus on delivering cutting-edge, high performance and energy-efficient solutions for India’s growing and evolving infrastructure needs.
- How is ABB utilizing digitalization to improve the efficiency and reliability of its HVACR solutions?
The benefits of digitalization are evident and well-known across industries, including HVACR. In line with this, ABB continues to provide smart, connected plug-and-play solutions to enable data-driven and improved decision making. For instance, ABB drives can be digitally connected to receive valuable data from the motor and driven application to show exactly how much energy is being utilized. This data can equip building or facility operators with insights on potential inefficiencies and enable them to take action to address the issues. Operators can also access a drive’s Bluetooth control panel from their smartphone to easily make changes without the need for physical access.
Simultaneously, our PLCs can integrate data from multiple drives, sensors and other components. For complex, large and critical facilities like hospitals and airports, ABB’s PLCs can ensure efficient control of the entire HVACR system by enabling complex decision-making based on multiple key parameters and eliminate any system interruptions. These insights also equip operators with timely information on equipment wear, enabling failure prevention. With these smart solutions, we are providing opportunities for faster commissioning and smarter equipment monitoring and maintenance.
- What is ABB’s vision for addressing India’s increasing demand for sustainable and reliable energy, water, and infrastructure solutions?
For industries like energy, water and infrastructure that are fundamental to economic development and improving quality of life, just running consistently is not enough. With growing population and increasing focus on achieving net zero targets, these industries need to also run more productively, efficiently and sustainably. With the country’s rapid industrial growth, ABB is on a mission to help industries outrun – leaner and cleaner. ABB’s “Engineered to Outrun” solutions are consistently helping these industries outperform.
ABB’s drives and automation solutions have been contributing to key nation-building projects and will continue to provide advanced technology to address the specific needs across these sectors. From ensuring grid stability to enabling energy-efficient operations, we are well positioned to support India’ net-zero targets with innovative and future-ready solutions.
