The first “episode” of this important milestone dates back to May 2020 with the publication of the call for tenders by The Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency (EEAA) through the agency for the sustainable management of persistent organic contaminants (POPs) in response to the obligations of the Stockholm Convention.
The tender, financed by the World Bank / GEF, was entitled: Decontamination of PCB-Containing transformer oil – Supply and installation of equipment, and training of local operators, for dechlorinating and purification of 1000 tons of PCB contaminated oil, which will produce clean oil suitable for reuse in electrical equipment (transformers).
Main milestones:
- July 2020, Sea Marconi responds to the tender
- November 2020, Sea Marconi receives the official award following the opening of the envelopes and the analysis of the proposals
- June 2021, shipment of materials and accessories from the Sea Marconi headquarters in Collegno, Turin (Italy) to the port of Alexandria in Egypt
- July 2021, shipment of the decontamination plants from the Sea Marconi headquarters in Collegno, Turin (Italy) to the port of Alexandria in Egypt
At the moment the lifts are sailing towards Alessandria with expected arrival on Monday 9th; the next steps, presumably in October 2021, are commissioning, the on-site demonstration of the technological capacity of the plants with the training of local operators aimed at autonomous use.
In this case, Sea Marconi has created and deployed a winning technology: BAT and BEP, mobile and modular, which allows to perform the treatment in situ, in a closed circuit, without emptying the transformer, in on-load mode, i.e. maintaining the transformers in service during PCB decontamination. The latter feature was particularly successful in a scenario, such as the Egyptian one, which will focus on transformers used in national electricity production and transmission. The Sea Marconi solution will therefore make it possible to move the treatment plants in the vicinity of the transformers to be decontaminated and to treat them without putting them out of service.
The plants by Sea Marconi (together with the patented reagents and the operating methodology, i.e. the CDP Process® system) will allow the Egyptian ministries of the Environment and Energy to meet the obligations of the Stockholm Convention on the sustainable management of persistent organic pollutants (POPs).
At the end of the project, that is when all the transformers will have a stable contamination below 50 mg/kg of PCB, the plants produced by Sea Marconi can still be used for maintenance activities aimed at extending the life cycle of oils and electrical equipment.
