Articles & Case Studies
Demands of hydro scheme

Posted: Wednesday 4th September 2013
The challenges presented for automation of water level management on the Gwda river in Poland were considerable. Requirements to ensure precise control included an extremely long actuator run time of over half an hour at 160rpm and 7,000 revolutions per stroke. The demands were met by non-intrusive, encoder version actuator devices supplied by SIPOS Aktorik.
With established credentials for providing high performance solutions, SIPOS impressed the scheme’s operators with the capabilities of its valve control devices. Sophisticated features that set the company’s products apart included soft-start functionality and an automatic ‘retry if blocked’ response.
Other options explored by the operators, including alternative actuators and a potentiometer, could not meet the exacting demands of the scheme – the maximum revolutions achieved by alternative technology equated to just five thousand turns.