AB Energy is a company which offers complete solutions

Conversation with Mr. Vladimir Oprescu, Regional Sales Manager, Gruppo AB

Mr. Oprescu, would you like to present AB Energy company to the readers of INFRABUILD Magazine and your activities here at the Bulgarian market?
I would like to start with the fact tha the abbreviation AB comes from Angelo Baronchelli who is the president of the company and the man who started this buisiness more than 30 years ago. It was started as a family buisiness and developing during the years nowdays there more than 15 companies in the group, more than 500 employees and buisiness in many European countries, also in Canada and Brazil. So, this man followed his dream and has succeeded.

AB is a company which offers solutions for cogeneration, solutions for energy efficiency for the industrial sector, and also solutions for renewable sector. We are talking about solutions based on biogas. For example from agriculture waste, from animal manure, from WWT systems, from municipality waste (landfill gas) and so on.

Our solutions for biogas projects have few main components. In the core of our system solution is the engine. It is very important. Then it is the biogas treatment skid, which is a very important part also, component which help us to treat the biogas making good for being used as fuel for the engine. Our company come with turn key solutions. The biogas comes from biological part at the temperature of 35-36 degrees Centigrade. We passed the biogas through a mechanical filter, then we reduce the temperature to 3-5 degrees Centigrade, and during that process we eliminate the condense. At the end the biogas is pushed to the engine with a blower and it is maintained at constant pressure 100-200 miliibars. So that is why this device is very important. Otherwise, in case the water state inside the biogas, this can damage the entire installation, due to the fact that it can combine with the H2S from the biogas and this reaction can produce sulfuric acid.

Second part, which is most important is the module, which include all the necessary components for a complete operational installation. I am speaking about the ventilations system, cooling system, thermal power recovery system, integrate automatic control system, remote control system, security and safety devices, piping, biogas train, insulations, lube oil automatic refiling system and so on.

We have a dedicated software which include all the components and control all the components of the system. Its was developed by AB during the time. Usually the engine comes with its own SCADA system, supervising system, but we integrate this system into our system and we connect it with all the other components. When we have to provide the engine maintenance, the biogas it is burned with the flare, special device which is calculate to burn the biogas at 800 – 1000 Celsius degree in order to respect the environmental legislation. We have to burn the biogas, because it will polute the atmosphere. And that way we reduce the pollution.

We are the kind of company which come with complete solution. We are not selling components, we are not selling engines. For us is most important to offer the customers complete solutions. Signing a contract with a customer mean for us the beginning of a long term collaboration. We stay close with the customers offering them service solutions and we guarantee them the performance and the availability of our installations.

Tell us more about your participation at the exhibition about Energy Efficiency 2014. What have you presented within the fair?
Regarding the exhibition our goal was to present our solutions for the biogas. But it was also important for visitors to understand that we don’t have solutions only for the biogas. In the case of renewable, we can offer solutions for gas obtained from waste water treatment systems, solutions for landfill gas which is obtained from municipality waste and so on. And we have the possibility to adapt our solutions to these kind of projects. We also have solutions for district heating installations.

Would you share some future plans and expectations for corporate development?
The business policy of AB is to continue the development of his activities in European countries and for every country to adapt his solutions at the existent market. Regarding the collaboration with the customers I have to mention that it’s very important to us to be close to our customers, and not only to sign a contract, but to make long lasting partnership. For us, signing a contract is a start of a collaboration. We succeed in this because of our service team. In all the countries (Italy, Czech Republic, Poland, Serbia, Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria, Spain, France, Holland, Germany, also in Canada and Brazil. And this year we started activity in UK), where AB operates, we have local services teams, and they are authorized to work on our solutions. The sustain service activities are the key to a good and long term collaboration.