The MMP (Midwest Metal Products) foundry is no ordinary foundry because it relies on an unusual but readily available source of energy, solar energy.

MMP foundries involve a variety of mature processes for steel and iron castings, as well as the installation of many other technical equipment similar to those commonly used in the metal casting industry.However, MMP USES a device that will surprise most foundries: solar power.

MMP foundry, a steel and cast iron foundry in vino sodium, Minnesota, has been on the road to development since ownership was changed in 2013.The plant also has a microwave-heated Foundry recycling facility in the United States, a prototype with m-wave Foundry Technologies that has been testing sand for foundries across the country.MMP foundry also actively applies natural pressure gate, and made a report entitled "gas entrapment: test model)" at the national technical and operation conference of cast steel association in 2017.The paper was awarded the SDSA's Robert g. Shepard prize for best paper at the December meeting.

MMP foundry has operated a wet sand grey cast iron foundry at its site since 1950.The foundry combined with a local thermal treatment plant in 1980, and in 1991 Howard Lambert, the company's chairman, introduced a self-hardening sand mold to produce steel and iron castings.

The foundry now produces cast iron and various steel castings, which are smelted in an electric furnace with a smelting capacity of about 2,800 pounds (1,270 kg) per furnace.The melting capacity determines the size and weight of the castings, from a few pounds of steel to 1,100 pounds (499 kg), and up to 1,800 pounds (816 kg) of cast iron.There are three self-hardening sand molding lines, each line produces different batches and sizes of castings.The factory is a small and medium-sized batch casting plant, some castings only a few years, some castings a year batch up to 15,000 pieces.

Carbon dioxide phenolic polyurethane hardening, air self - hardening, shell core, oil sands and other production of complex shape casting.Because casting size and weight are very different, the size and capacity of the different ladle, manual pouring.Cleaning is mainly manual cleaning, plan to purchase more cleaning machinery and equipment.There are three heat treatment furnaces and one tempering furnace.

With the help of partner companies, MMP foundry provides customers with many high value-added services including machining, spraying, testing, flame quenching and other special treatment of castings.

MMP foundry provides all kinds of black castings for purchasers from all walks of life, including mining, petroleum and natural gas, trenchless technology, agriculture, national defense, large equipment original manufacturers, wear-resistant material processing and other industries.The backlog of business orders has increased by more than 400 percent since mid-2016, and is now the highest since the plant was built.

There is currently no specific capital investment plan for the MMP founfount, but we are working hard to maximize capacity and upgrade infrastructure in the current plant configuration.

The power supply we developed for this foundry surprised many foundries.Induction furnace smelting consumes up to 2.7mw of power a year.Since the smelting system was installed in 2013, the internal power system has been in place and no major changes are planned in the near future.

In 2015, MMP founfounds participated in the Minnesota community solar power park project, a collaborative project to coordinate the installation of dozens of rows of photovoltaic panels to generate electricity.The energy value generated is recorded in participating companies.

The solar photovoltaic panel array is located at a location where power transformers are easily connected to a local grid to allow the generated power to be incorporated into the existing transmission infrastructure and to supplement the power of other power stations.In Minnesota, these plants typically generate 5 MW of power, unlike the large array of photovoltaic panels installed by Xcel Energy in chisago county, which generates 100 MW.

Minnesota community solar park developers are pitching the idea of placing orders with key power users.The earth has an infinite amount of energy through its relationship to the sun (radiation and gravitational effects), so it makes sense to try to get it as directly as possible.It is also beneficial for foundries in an environmental sense.

In September 2013, Minnesota mandated that by 2020, 1.5 percent of the total power generated by large power suppliers must come from solar energy, from energy companies' large solar arrays and community solar projects.The state currently hosts the largest community solar power park project in the county, with 58 projects by December 2017 and 69 more planned this year.

Minnesota is a good place to use solar energy because of its terrain and "sunny" days, but once you've screened out all the potential places that are actually available, the number of places that are actually available is greatly reduced.After the division, for example, out of the 40, 500 plots in carver county, excluding agricultural reservations, only 128 plots (0.32% of the county's total) of suitable land surface (without forests), wetlands and access to power grids that connect important transmission lines are suitable for development.

As a result of the plan, the developer of the "solar power park" was granted a license to build a 1mw power park, which eventually allowed the construction of five separate solar power parks on one site.Each megawatt of solar power requires 2.5 acres (10,117 m2) of space for photovoltaic arrays.

In addition, the task of the developer is to find and guarantee that the subscriber will use the power generated by the solar power park built by the developer.This ensures that new sources of electricity effectively replace those provided by other means, and that obstacles must be overcome in order to be able to continue building solar power parks.

The rules surrounding these solar power plants are stringent, one of which is that a single subscriber cannot use more than 40 percent of the electricity of a single solar farm, and each park must have at least five subscribers.

According to this power supply framework, MMP foundry was registered as a subscriber of four solar power generation parks in mid-2016 to obtain the full power demand of the foundry.The scheme USES the first two years of electricity consumption as the baseline, allowing a single subscriber to obtain 120% of the electricity consumption.MMP foundry has ordered 4 solar power parks, more than 100% of the average.

After 40 years of economic cycles in the foundry industry, we have confidence in the growth of MMP foundries following the 2015-2016 recession (a 40 percent drop in shipments compared to 2014).So our choice is "bold conservatism."

Several developers won contracts to install arrays of photovoltaic panels in Minnesota, and each developer was able to sign individual contracts with subscribers in a variety of ways.These range from fixed prices for existing energy tariff indicators to variable prices for higher risk.In each case, the subscriber has to sign a 25-year contract with the developer.Ultimately we predict that MMP foundry orders will save us $25,000 per year or us $625,000 over the total contract period.

The solarpower park at the MMP foundry was operated by Berkshire Hathaway Energy Renewables.The power park will be online in 2018 and will have enough output to sell surplus electricity to the grid, despite a significant increase in the MMP fountry's business.We don't expect this to continue because we are increasing production as the economy grows and we are securing new customers for our products.Because the solar power park is supplying power to a large grid, MMP founfounds believe there is no difference in the quality and profitability of the electricity used to produce it.

But MMP fountry is very pleased to have the initiative in this project, and our view is that solar energy will serve our plant well into the future.