Ludwigshafen, Germany – December 2025 – BASF SE, the world’s largest chemical producer, has achieved a 47% reduction in electrical maintenance costs and a 93% decrease in equipment damage incidents at its Ludwigshafen manufacturing complex, following the upgrade to ABB’s SPAJ140C highly integrated protection relays. The project, which replaced 220 obsolete electromechanical relays across 12 production units, was completed in Q4 2025 and has already delivered €1.8 million in operational savings.
The Industrial Challenge: Aging Relays Threaten Safety & Productivity
BASF’s Ludwigshafen plant, a critical hub for specialty chemicals and polymers, relied on 30-year-old protection relays that posed significant risks:
- Delayed Fault Response: Traditional relays took 1.5–2 seconds to trip during short circuits, leading to 8–10 equipment damage incidents annually (e.g., motor burnout, transformer failures) costing €350,000 per incident.
- Poor Isolation: Lack of selective tripping caused “越级跳闸” (overlapping trips), shutting down entire production lines instead of isolating individual faulty components—resulting in 4–5 unplanned shutdowns yearly, each lasting 12–16 hours.
- Maintenance Nightmares: Obsolete components meant 60% of relay failures required custom repairs, with lead times of 3–4 weeks. Annual maintenance costs exceeded €900,000.
- Safety Risks: Inadequate earth fault protection increased the risk of electric shock for technicians working on live equipment, violating Germany’s BG ETEM safety regulations.
“Chemical production demands zero tolerance for electrical failures—they risk safety, environmental compliance, and massive financial losses,” said Dr. Andreas Weber, BASF’s Electrical Engineering Manager. “Our old relays were a ticking time bomb. We needed a modern, integrated solution that could protect our critical equipment, reduce downtime, and simplify maintenance.”
ABB SPAJ140C: Industrial-Grade Protection for High-Stakes Environments
The SPAJ140C’s rugged design and integrated safety features made it the ideal choice for BASF’s harsh industrial environment:
- Rapid, Selective Tripping: The relay’s high-set overcurrent unit triggers instantaneous trips (40ms) for severe short circuits, preventing equipment damage, while low-set IDMT units ensure selective isolation of faulty components—avoiding line-wide shutdowns .
- Dual Fault Protection: Integrated overcurrent and earth fault protection addresses the two most common industrial electrical failures. The built-in circuit-breaker failure protection logic provides a backup trip path, eliminating persistent faults .
- Modular Maintainability: Hot-swappable modules and standardized components reduce repair time from weeks to hours. Spare parts are readily available globally, cutting maintenance lead times by 90% .
- Safety Compliance: Galvanic isolation (2.5kVrms) and fault-locking indicators meet BG ETEM requirements, reducing electric shock risks for technicians. The relay’s local control panel allows parameter adjustments without direct contact with live parts .
- Process Compatibility: Withstands chemical fumes, vibration, and temperature fluctuations (-40°C to +70°C), maintaining performance in BASF’s reactor rooms and chemical storage areas .
Deployment & Transformative Results
BASF’s team, in collaboration with ABB’s industrial protection experts, phased the SPAJ140C installation across 12 production units to avoid operational disruption. The project included custom configuration of protection curves for critical equipment (e.g., high-voltage motors, process transformers) and training for 45 maintenance technicians.
