How a new plant is being built in Bila Tserkva
ABCnews watches Plank Electrotechnic Plant being built
A cluster of plastic factories, representing all three existing technologies for the production of goods made of polymers and composites will appear in the town of Bila Tservka outside the city of Kyiv. The first, Plank Electrotechnic, will begin work this autumn.
The plant is built on a plot of 11.7 hectares, which is part of the Bila Tserkva Industrial Park. A railway line is linked to the site along with motor roads. The Rotok railway station is nearby. The construction of all necessary engineering networks will be completed there: water supply, sewerage, stormwater, power supply (10 kW). Natural gas is not planned to be used for production, and the issue of heat supply will be resolved through the recovery of industrial heat.
Plank plans to build four facilities of the so-called plastic cluster: three plants and a logistics complex. General Manager of Plank Electrotechnic Alexander Kryzhanovskiy says that the logistics complex will handle raw materials – primary granules of plastic masses, which will be used for production. The requirements for the facility are quite strict: it is necessary to ensure a constant temperature regime (16-18 degrees Celsius above zero) and humidity (up to 60%).
There are three main types of plastic processing – injection (by molding in press molds under pressure), extrusion (the procedure of forming a product by pumping through a shaped die to form a continuous stream of product) and pultrusion (a continuous process for manufacture of composite materials with constant cross-section). All three types of the facilities will be available in the plastic cluster, they will provide Ukraine with innovative products in future.
“In Europe, 90-100 kg of plastic products per year are used per person, in Ukraine this figure is only 12 kg. The demand is huge, especially for the reconstruction and new construction of municipal and private property,” Kryzhanovskiy says
Plank Electrotechnic’s first plant, which is being actively built, will introduce injection technologies. About 50 people work at the site. The number of employees will increase to 100 people when finishing works begin.
The building itself is made of structures designed by the Astron company (Luxembourg). Ready-made structures can be assembled on the ground in a few months. In general, the share of foreign-made building materials is about 70%, domestic materials account for 30% (foundation, reinforcement). The area of the future plant is 3,705 square meters, its height is 7.5 meters.
Now the building as a whole has already been assembled, floor works are under way along with the assembly of the roof and walls. Polymer fittings instead of metal ones are used for the floor (supplied by the Ukrainian producer Armacom). Seam roofing technology is used: its upper metal layer is in fact sealed like a tin can. PV panels are to be installed on the roof. And the minimum design capacity of such structures is 200 kW, growing to 500 kW with higher solar irradiance. Considering that the plant itself will consume 630 kW at the maximum loading of equipment, the solar roof can significantly reduce the cost of electricity purchases.
As Alexander Kryzhanovskiy said, part of the equipment has already been mounted on the temporary site and it will be relocated after the building is put into operation. Contracts have already been signed, and in the coming months, the German company KraussMaffei and the Chinese Sino Holdings Group – Dakumar are expected to start the supply of equipment made in 2018. Electrical accessories – sockets, switches, etc. – will be manufactured in this building.
The technology is designed in the way that it will take up to 30 minutes to reconfigure the equipment and change the molding machines. The smallest commercially feasible batch starts from 500 units.
The building is planned to be put into operation in autumn. Up to 50 people will be employed at the plant; about 20 of them will work in the design department.