Factory Digital Twin Automation

While supporting operations at my family’s construction company, I identified a critical bottleneck at two active aggregate sites: chronically low power factor (0.53 lagging) that triggered 21% utility penalties over the electricity bill, restricted production, and threatened the need for a costly new aditional transformer to expand production.

With no local experts available and no access to professional power-quality analyzers, I took full ownership of the solution. Having only theoretical knowledge from university and never having designed or commissioned a power factor correction system before, I bridged the gap from textbook exercises to real industrial implementation — sourcing every component myself despite significant challenges.
 

I discovered a 15-year-old automatic capacitor bank that had been completely abandoned: all capacitors had failed due to years of zero maintenance, the unit was switched off, and the original banks were severely undersized for the expanded plant. I refurbished it into a modern 12 capacitor hybrid system delivering 240 kVAR of dynamic correction. Using only a Fluke clamp multimeter and the utility bills, I tuned it to a stable 0.96 power factor across the full load range.

Simultaneously, I designed and built a complete 240 kVAR fixed capacitor bank from scratch for the second aggregate site — fully commissioned in just 48 hours.

These interventions eliminated all penalties, freed ~132 kVA of transformer capacity, and unlocked 32% higher production with almost no increase in energy costs — without external consultants or new equipment.