Most businesses are working to drive down costs while simultaneously reducing their environmental impact. For them, there cannot be a better option than innovative clean technology solutions that offer a lot of benefits in terms of cost reduction and environmental safety.
A.T.E. not only offers differentiated clean technologies spanning energy, water and air, including remote monitoring, but also domain expertise in application areas, thus distinctly standing apart from a host of other players in the field.
A reputed, diversified Indian engineering group, which will be celebrating its Platinum Jubilee (75 years) in 2014, A.T.E. has long operated in the fields of textile engineering, flow technology and print and packaging solutions. The group ventured into clean technology space in 2006 with its entry into machine-to-machine solution business, followed by energy-efficient cooling solutions and water and waste water management.
A.T.E.’s foray into clean technology is propelled by its passion. “I have always been passionate about the environment and wanted to get involved in the environment movement and socially useful businesses, particularly as I was deeply concerned that India is one country that would be badly hit with climate change”, said Mr. Anuj Bhagwati, the head of the A.T.E. Group, who is spearheading A.T.E.’s clean tech drive.
Here is an overview of A.T.E.’s clean technology businesses:
Water and waste water management
In the context of the increasing water scarcity, the need for water and wastewater management and recycling cannot be over-emphasized. A.T.E. provides a comprehensive range of state-of-the-art technology solutions for the management of water and treatment and recycling of wastewater from within the group, as well as from various global leaders that it has tied up with.
A.T.E. Envirotech, an A.T.E. Group company, offers complete wastewater treatment and recycling solutions, including zero liquid discharge. The company has already executed over 200 projects in India and other countries, including the US, Puerto Rico, Zambia, Philippines, Ethiopia, Malaysia and Indonesia.
The company undertakes turnkey projects as well as upgradation of the existing projects through value-added products. It also undertakes complete project execution and commissioning, recommissioning, trouble-shooting, etc. In addition, it can take up comprehensive monitoring and maintenance contracts using innovative remote monitoring technologies.
A.T.E. operates in areas like municipal infrastructure, water and waste water projects and industry verticals like textiles, dairy, sugar, pharmaceuticals, petrochemical, chemical, healthcare, food processing and building segment and has a base of satisfied customers across these verticals.
Leveraging its in-house expertise, the company has developed the highly successful “AAA” process that enhances biological treatment efficiency and minimizes sludge generation. It also provides VSEP-EVR (Vibratory Shear Enhanced Processing-Evaporation Volume Reduction), a patented membrane-based system from New Logic Research (for reducing the volume of wastewater going to evaporators in ZLD plants). While the VRM (Vacuum Rotating Membrane) based MBR systems from Huber, Germany, can handle difficult to treat effluents, the AVR (Anaerobic Venturi Reactor) based biomethanation plants offer sustainable and trouble-free operations.
For energy efficient water flow management, A.T.E. offers a wide range of pumping solutions from some of the world’s well-known brands and its own ‘BoostStar’ hydro-pneumatic (HyP) pressure boosting systems. The ‘BoostStar’ system is built with the most advanced features to manage the water flow of high-rise apartments, townships, bungalows/villas, commercial buildings such as malls, hotels and office buildings and also for industrial applications.
A.T.E.’s customers include some well-known names such as Chitale Dairy, Godavari Bio-refineries, Renuka Sugars, Torrent Pharma, Cipla, Jeyavishnu Textile Processors, Indo Rama, Larsen & Toubro, Vatech Wabag, Tata Steel, Voltas, Municipal Corporations of Ahmedabad, Kolkata and Delhi, etc.
Energy-efficient cooling solutions
Cooling is a major contributor to energy consumption and thus the main source of CO2 emission in the atmosphere. About 40 per cent of a building’s energy consumption is from its cooling requirements. With increasing power scarcity, rising electricity bills and mounting carbon emissions, there is a great need to have energy-efficient and eco-friendly cooling systems. HMX Systems, an A.T.E. Group company, offers comfort cooling solutions, providing comfort with better economy as well as with lower carbon intensity.
The first of the innovative products developed by HMX Systems was the ‘HMX-Ambiator’. It is a new generation two-stage evaporative cooling solution providing ‘100% fresh-clean-cool air’ and an energy-efficient alternative to conventional air-conditioners with up to 60 per cent energy saving. HMX has subsequently launched HMX-Treated Fresh Air (TFA) and HMX-Economizer.
Comfort cooling by the principle of ‘two-stage evaporative cooling’ is a concept that is fast catching on. It is a significant upgrade over air-washer (single stage evaporative cooling) technology in the sense that it either ‘saves power for the same cooling effect as an air-washer’ or ‘provides more cooling and comfort than an air-washer’ for the same power. Further, in case of HMX-Ambiator, moisture addition in the conditioned space is just 50 per cent that of air-washers.
Two-stage evaporative cooling is a fresh air solution. So it is optimum for many applications such as factory shed cooling and fringe areas in buildings. Ambiators further protect the environment by not using any ozone depleting CFCs.
HMX-TFA is an innovative technology product to supply filtered and conditioned fresh air in designated areas. A highly energy-efficient solution for once-through and fresh air cooling applications in industries such as pharma, foods, beverages, automobiles, etc., it can be used in conjunction with AHUs/large chiller installations for energy saving while treating the fresh air intake in commercial buildings.
The HMX-Economizer is an energy recovery device that lowers the TR load on AC. It helps in recovering the energy from outgoing air and pre-cools the fresh air. Since there is no rotating wheel, there will be no wear/tear, no deterioration of efficiency over time and no cross contamination.
Many studies point to the greater health and productivity of people working in offices as well as in spaces that have significantly higher fresh air component. The higher air volumes of evaporative cooling systems (compared to air-conditioning systems) provide greater comfort at higher temperatures. In such situations, in many climates, two-stage evaporative cooling is finding a niche for itself.
The concept of comfort cooling, driven by a commitment for sustainability, is fast catching up in India as is borne out by the impressive list of large corporates who have installed the HMX-Ambiators at their offices and factories. Marquee names include: Volkswagen, Tata Motors, Bosch and ITC, to name a few.
Machine-to-machine solutions
“If you can monitor equipment of whatever sort or buildings remotely, then you can ensure that they operate at optimal levels, in turn conserving energy and resources”, said Mr. Abhay Nalawade, Founder and Managing Director of EcoAxis, the A.T.E. Group company in the M2M business.
Industrial equipment presents numerous complexities owing to changing technologies, difficult processes, different users, etc., which make the overall equipment optimization a humanly impossible task. This leads to sub-optimization of equipment capabilities and wastage of resources. The machine-to-machine technology platform developed by EcoAxis precisely addresses this long-standing problem.
EcoAxis’ product suite, which is called SuperAxis, captures various operational data based on the pre-determined parameters from industrial plants, equipment and utilities and transmits them to a central server where the data is analyzed and archived. Based on the analysis, the system triggers periodic or emergency notifications to the stakeholders on the machine performance and energy consumption. Just as ‘a stitch in time saves nine’, the timely notifications help stakeholders to take necessary corrective/preventive action to not only improve the machine performance but also optimize resource consumption.
EcoAxis solutions have vast applications, e.g., boilers, distilleries, water and waste water treatment plants, foundries, bottling plants, food processing units, power, water monitoring, carbon monitoring, etc. With resource conservation moving to the top of the business agenda, demand for this application in utilities is growing rapidly.
EcoAxis is a pioneer in introducing this innovative technology in India and has gained widespread expertise over the years with the execution of a large number of prestigious projects, including remote monitoring of Thermax absorption chillers, CEO dash board for Godavari Bio-refineries, thermal power plant monitoring for KSK Energy Ventures, etc., while many more such projects are in the pipeline.