by Gary Mintchell | Jul 31, 2019 | Asset Performance Management, Internet of Things, Productivity
Moving to sustainable sources of energy to generate electrical power, as Europe has, requires a balancing act. Solar and wind generation provide an imbalance of power since they only operate when proper atmospheric conditions exist—i.e. sunlight or wind. Hydro generation provides a necessary balance, explained Pier-Vittorio Rebba, technology manager power generation for ABB.
But many hydro plants are aging. Management realizes the need to digitalize operations to obtain the best use of Asset Performance Management applications as well as best optimization of plant assets. ABB and its customer Enel Green Power partnered to digitalize operations delivering predictive maintenance solutions that will lower maintenance costs and transform the performance, reliability, and energy efficiency of its hydropower plants throughout Italy.
The three-year contract will enable 33 of Enel Green Power’s hydroelectric plants, comprised of about 100 units, to move from hours-based maintenance to predictive and condition-based maintenance, leveraging the ABB Ability Asset Performance Management solution. With operations in five continents, the Enel Group’s renewable business line, Enel Green Power, is a global leader in the green energy sector, with a managed capacity of more than 43 GW.
“We are privileged to be partnering with Enel Green Power, a digital pioneer, in their move from hours-based to predictive maintenance utilizing ABB Ability technologies for big data, machine learning and advanced analytics,” said Kevin Kosisko, Managing Director, Energy Industries, ABB. “Predictive maintenance and asset performance management must become a key component of plant operators’ strategies to optimize maintenance operations, minimize risk, improve resilience and reduce costs. The results are more competitive electricity rates, in a more sustainable way.”
Collaborating closely since early 2018, the two companies have jointly developed and tested predictive maintenance and advanced solutions (PresAGHO) via a pilot on five Enel plants in Italy and Spain, including Presenzano, a 1,000-megawatt plant near Naples.
The new contract includes digital software solutions and services that will provide analysis of over 190,000 signals and the deployment of about 800 digital asset models, aimed at improving plant operational performance, reducing unplanned failures and enabling more efficient planned maintenance practices through predictive maintenance. The integration is expected to yield savings in fleet maintenance costs and increase plant productivity.
The ABB Ability Collaborative Operations Center for power generation and water will help bring wider benefits of digitalization and engagement, supporting informed decision-making, real-time solutions and cost savings. The center already provides similar digital solutions and advanced applications for more than 700 power plants, water facilities and electric vehicle charging stations globally.
“With personnel retirements resulting in knowledge gaps and more competitive electricity marketplaces, we believe that many power generation customers globally can benefit from this kind of digital transformation around maintenance and operations,” said Mr Kosisko.
by Gary Mintchell | Nov 30, 2015 | Automation, News, Operations Management, Organizations, Standards
New power generation technologies will only optimize when high capacity storage becomes reality. You never know when or where you might learn about advances.
Consider this example of always remaining open toward gaining new knowledge and contacts. My wife and I were at breakfast in a Napa Valley Bed and Breakfast on vacation last September. We began a conversation with another couple about our age regarding which winery tours might be best.
The man asked me what I did. “Write about industrial technology and applications.” You might be interested in this, he replied. Turns out he was an electrical power utility general manager and had become involved with a standards initiative–MESA. No, not the MESA (MES Association) that I’m involved with. This one develops standards for connecting to energy storage. This area holds immense importance for the future of the power grid.
Storage Standards Association
So he shared some contact information and connected me with the association. I’ve talked with people there and am sharing some information from the Website to introduce this important initiative. Expect more in the future.
(All of this information comes from the Website.)
Why MESA?
Grid-connected energy storage promises large potential benefits. And yet, before safe, affordable energy storage can deliver on its promise, electric utility customers and their suppliers must solve significant problems. Many of these problems boil down to lack of standardization.
Standards are required for any technology to be deployed at scale. The personal computer industry grew from few to millions of units per year, while dramatically improving price-performance, based on standards for its software and hardware components. Like other industries, the energy storage industry needs to organize for scale, based on a cohesive industry vision and technology standards.
MESA Standards clear barriers to growth in energy storage. By making standard connections between components possible, MESA frees utilities and vendors to focus on delivering more cost-effective electricity to more people.
Today’s Problem
Current utility-grade energy storage systems (ESS) are project-specific, one-off solutions, built using proprietary components that are not modular or interoperable. Connecting these proprietary systems with key utility control software such as SCADA platforms is cumbersome and time-consuming.
Before an ESS can function, the batteries, power converters, and software that make up the ESS must be intelligently “plugged into” each other and the electrical system. Then the ESS as a whole must be intelligently plugged into the utility’s existing information and operations technology. Without established standards, components and systems offer their own proprietary connectors, and the process of plugging them together must be repeated for each new project.
Time, Money, Safety
Connecting the proprietary pieces can result in a motley collection of custom interfaces, or “kludges,” designed to address vendor-specific hardware. Creating such systems is a complex process that comes with its own heavy baggage:
- High project costs, and decreased reliability and safety.
- Component vendors tempted to stretch their expertise and offer a complete ESS solution, losing focus on their own core competency. Instead of developing innovative, best-of-breed components—such as a better, cheaper battery—these vendors simply re-invent yet another proprietary wheel.
- One-off, proprietary solutions that are inflexible, not easily scaled, and have limited operational control. The utility customer becomes dependent on a single ESS supplier, with few options to upgrade, expand or re-purpose their energy storage investment.
Despite willing buyers (electric utilities) and willing sellers (battery, power converter, and software suppliers), market growth is limited. Significant opportunities – for example, the potential for broad deployment of standardized ESS configurations at many utility substations – are beyond the industry’s reach in its current form.
To fully enable broad deployment of grid-connected storage, and grow the market for all, standards are required to address these limitations.
The MESA Solution
Modular Energy Storage Architecture (MESA) is an open, non-proprietary set of specifications and standards developed by an industry consortium of electric utilities and technology suppliers. Through standardization, MESA accelerates interoperability, scalability, safety, quality, availability, and affordability in energy storage components and systems.
Key MESA Goals:
- Standardize communications and connections, which will accelerate interoperability and scalability.
- Give electric utilities more choice by enabling multi-vendor, component-based ESS.
- Reduce project-specific engineering costs, enabling a more robust energy storage market.
- Enable technology suppliers to focus on their core competency, facilitating quality, safety, and cost-effectiveness.
- Reduce training costs and improve safety for field staff through standardized procedures for safety and efficiency.
by Gary Mintchell | Oct 16, 2015 | Asset Performance Management, Automation, News, Operations Management, Process Control, Security, Technology, Wireless
This is another long post—and it is a summary—running through many of the new products introduced to the press and analysts durning Emerson Exchange 2015. If any of these whet your appetite, visit the Emerson Process Website for more information.
Another place to catch up on happenings at the conference is Jim Cahill’s Emerson Process Experts blog. He also has been introducing readers to highlighted sessions.
Machinery protection
CSI 6500 ATG protection system, a stand-alone machinery protection solution that allows users to cost-effectively introduce prediction monitoring of critical assets from the same system. Predictive intelligence is a key component to increasing availability and improving the reliability of plant assets.
These multi-functional cards can be easily reconfigured for a wide range of measurements, including the impacting or peak-to-peak data used in Emerson’s unique PeakVue technology. In addition to monitoring the start-up and coastdown of critical turbo machinery for safe operation, users will be able to utilize PeakVue technology to identify the earliest indications of developing faults in gearboxes and bearings.
With the CSI 6500 ATG, it is no longer necessary to return to the control room or open cabinets in the field to view or analyze data. The CSI 6500 ATG can be networked over wired or wireless Ethernet to deliver asset health information to authorized users through a PC or phone application.
To facilitate easy system integration with third party systems, CSI 6500 ATG is the first protection system to include a secure embedded OPC UA server.
Gas ultrasonic flow meter
A new Daniel gas ultrasonic flow meter platform elevates its well-proven British Gas design by providing two meters and transmitters in a single body to help natural gas operators and pipelines improve reliability and efficiency. Designed to maximize capital budgets by permitting two completely independent measurements with the installation of just a single flowmeter, the new 3415 (four-path + one-path) and 3416 (four-path + two-path) gas ultrasonic flow meters combine a four-path fiscal meter with an additional check meter, while the new 3417 (four-path + four-path) meter provides two fiscal meters for full redundancy and equal accuracy within one meter body. This two-in-one redundant design delivers continuous on-line verification of custody transfer measurement integrity, device health and process conditions, and improves fiscal metering confidence while ensuring regulatory compliance.
Both Daniel 3415 and 3416 gas ultrasonic meters measure flow using four horizontal chordal paths in addition to a reflective path dedicated to verification of the primary measurement, enabling improved metering insight, more informed decision making and simplified flow meter verification. For enhanced immunity to pipe wall contamination, the 3416 meter is equipped with an additional vertical reflective path to detect liquid or very thin layers of contamination at the bottom of the meter that otherwise remain completely hidden in a direct-path meter design. This allows reliable monitoring of process changes before they affect measurement, thus reducing calibration frequency and enabling maintenance to be condition-based instead of calendar-based.
Electric actuator control
DCMlink Software, a unified electric actuator control, monitoring and diagnostics platform, will allow, for the first time, Emerson customers to diagnose, configure, and monitor all electric actuators from a central location independent of protocol, actuator or host system. The software extends the useful life of field assets by providing actuator data gathering, condition monitoring, events log and prioritization of actuator alarms in a unified and consistent user interface. Actuator configuration includes custom characterization, as well as the ability to import and export historical configuration profiles.
Whether it is viewing value torque profile, live trending data or actionable alarms straight from the actuator, plant operators will be able to access detailed monitoring and diagnostics data, allowing them to take action before a fault occurs. DCMlink offers advanced control and diagnostics, including torque profile curves, initiating partial stroke test or emergency shut down and alarms in NE-107 format. Current communications support included Modbus, TCP-IP, and Bluetooth.
DeltaV v13
Version 13 (v13) of the DeltaV distributed control system (DCS) new features focus on integration, advanced alarm management, and security with an overarching design that improves ease of use and minimizes the need for specialized expertise.
DeltaV v13 delivers technologies to bring sources together for easy operator access and use. These technologies include an Ethernet I/O card (EIOC) for integrating Ethernet-based subsystems and devices, including a direct interface with smart motor control centers and substations. It improves the factory acceptance testing (FAT) experience by providing enhanced safety instrumented system simulation capabilities and easy-to-use virtualization environment.
The new DeltaV Alarm Mosaic has an intuitive alarm display that enables operators to more quickly identify, analyze, and respond correctly to the root cause of an abnormal process condition. The new release also provides trend display optimizations for better visibility of process changes.
SCADA
OpenEnterprise v3.2 release adds a native interface to the AMS Device Manager asset management software, enabling users to remotely manage and maintain HART and WirelessHART devices in wide-area SCADA networks.
OpenEnterprise v3.2 together with AMS Device Manager allows asset owners to extend the reach of their predictive maintenance capability out to their remote assets, providing a powerful and proactive method of diagnosing potential device problems remotely. This results in reduced trips to the field and helps to avoid unplanned process shutdowns, improving safety, reliability, and profitability.
The native interface of OpenEnterprise v3.2 to AMS Device Manager enables the collection of wired and wireless HART digital device data over low bandwidth wide-area SCADA networks from Emerson ROC, FloBoss, and ControlWave RTUs without adding the additional complexity and expense of external HART multiplexers. Support for AMS Device Manager SNAP-ON applications, OpenEnterprise SCADA server redundancy, multiple deployment options, and data collection for up to 10,000 HART devices ensures flexibility and scalability for a wide range of remote oil and gas applications.
Machinery health in PowerGen
Emerson now offers its power generation and water/wastewater industry customers native machinery health monitoring and protection capability within the Ovation distributed control system.
Ovation Machinery Health Monitor leverages the Ovation platform through a high-performance I/O module dedicated to machinery health functions. Simply install by inserting the module into a spare I/O slot.
With the Ovation Machinery Health Monitor, operators receive alerts from a single set of common plant HMIs and no longer need to manually check machinery functions through a separate system.
The Ovation Machinery Health Monitor also reduces the risk of cyber attack by eliminating links to standalone systems and isolating process information – all of which can help facilities meet NERC CIP and other security regulations.
Silica sensing
Costly damage to turbine blades caused by silica deposition can occur due to a poorly monitored steam purity program. The new Rosemount 2056 Silica Analyzer provides continuous accurate measurements of silica in process streams with a range of 0.5 ppb to 5000 ppb. The 2056’s usability features make it one of the easiest -to-use and high performing analyzers.
Harsh duty pressure sensing
Rosemount 3051S Thermal Range Expander with new UltraTherm 805 oil fill fluid enables pressure measurements by direct-mounting a diaphragm seal system to processes that reach up to 410°C (770°F) without requiring the challenging impulse piping or heat tracing used in traditional connection technology. In applications where ambient temperatures drop below ideal operating conditions, system response time becomes slow, resulting in delayed process pressure readings. Traditionally, this problem is solved by using heat tracing which is costly, maintenance intensive, and difficult to install. By using the new thermal range expander dual fill fluid seal, the Rosemount 3051S can reliably measure pressure at extremely high process and low ambient temperatures.
The Rosemount 3051S Electronic Remote Sensors (ERS) System now has safety certification. The ERS System calculates differential pressure through a digital architecture — and is now suitable for SIL 2 and 3 applications.
Rosemount 3051S High Static Differential Pressure Transmitter provides reliable flow measurement in high pressure applications with capabilities up to 15,000 psi (1034 bar). The transmitter’s SuperModule platform and coplanar design reduce potential leak points by 50 percent compared to traditional designs, ensuring the highest differential pressure measurement accuracy, field reliability and safety.
Corrosion monitoring
The Roxar Corrosion Monitoring system, consisting of wireless-based probes, will provide refineries with flexible, responsive, integrated and highly accurate corrosion monitoring.
Combined with the Emerson’s non-intrusive Field Signature Method (FSM) technology, a non-intrusive system for monitoring internal corrosion at the pipewall, refinery operators will be able to access more comprehensive corrosion information and corrosion rates, leading to improved operator insight and control over assets.
The system will also help identify and track opportunity/high TAN crudes and their corrosive elements. Such crudes are less expensive but more corrosive than others with the new system enabling the maximum amount of such crudes to be blended into the mix without increasing corrosion risk.
Wireless pressure gauge
Emerson Process Management has introduced the industry’s first WirelessHART pressure gauge. The Rosemount Wireless Pressure Gauge enables remote collection of field data.
The Wireless Pressure Gauge eliminates mechanical gauge common weak points by removing the components that inhibit the device from reporting/displaying pressure and providing up to a 10-year life, which reduces maintenance cost and time. The large 4.5-inch gauge face provides easy field visibility.
by Gary Mintchell | Jul 24, 2015 | Asset Performance Management, Automation, Data Management, Industrial Computers, Internet of Things, Operations Management, Technology
Representatives of National Instruments (NI) and IBM recently discussed their collaboration on a test bed demonstrating the possibilities for using Internet of Things (IoT) technologies for taking companies from Condition Monitoring to Predictive Maintenance.
Chris O’Connor, IBM General Manager of IoT who works with divisions such as Maximo told me this is a new business unit that is built around IoT. There are about 6,000 clients. The explosion of data coming from devices means that industry must change from data centers to IoT. “For us, this entails the analysis of sensors information, aggregating the information, then constructing lifecycles. This will help world adopt IoT.”
The collaboration from condition monitoring and analytics changes questions manufacturers can answer such as, can I gain competitive advantage, can I offer better warranty, change frequency of maintenance.
Jamie Smith, NI’s Director of Embedded Systems, said the test bed project will roll out in multiple phases. It demonstrates the interoperability between two industry leaders including edge computing capability from NI to IBM’s cloud technology and analytics. Therefore, users can progress from condition monitoring to predictive maintenance.
The test bed consists of a motor and a couple of fans. Various failure modes are introduced. The first go consists of NI CompactRIO communicating via MQTT to IBM. Now that the proof has been completed, other companies in the Industrial Internet Consortium have been invited to join the collaboration. “All they need to do is contribute time and resources to it,” added Smith.
The next step according to Smith is insuring that it’s end to end secure. They are working with IIC to do security assessment. They will then look at more robust assets—most likely power generation assets—hoping to work with someone with large turbines or pumps to continue to demonstrate the technology and benefits.
Following is a description from the statement on the Web.
The Condition Monitoring and Predictive Maintenance Testbed (CM/PM) will demonstrate the value and benefits of continuously monitoring industrial equipment to detect early signs of performance degradation or failure. CM/PM will also use modern analytical technologies to allow organizations to not only detect problems but proactively recommend actions for operations and maintenance personnel to correct the problem.
Condition Monitoring (CM) is the use of sensors in equipment to gather data and enable users to centrally monitor the data in real-time. Predictive Maintenance (PM) applies analytical models and rules against the data to proactively predict an impending issue; then deliver recommendations to operations, maintenance and IT departments to address the issue.
These capabilities enable new ways to monitor the operation of the equipment – such as turbines and generators – and processes and to adopt proactive maintenance and repair procedures rather than fixed schedule-based procedures, potentially saving money on maintenance and repair, and saving cost and lost productivity of downtime caused by equipment failures.
Furthermore, combining sensor data from multiple pieces of equipment and/or multiple processes can provide deeper insight into the overall impact of faulty or sub-optimal equipment, allowing organizations to identify and resolve problems before they impact operations and improve the quality and efficiency of industrial processes.
Through this testbed, the testbed leaders IBM and National Instruments will explore the application of a variety of analytics technologies for condition monitoring and predictive maintenance. The testbed application will initially be deployed to a power plant facility where performance and progress will be reported on, additional energy equipment will be added and new models will be developed. It will then be expanded to adjacent, as yet to be determined, industries.
by Gary Mintchell | Mar 30, 2015 | Automation, Internet of Things, News, Operations Management, Technology
Developing testbeds for testing development of technology extensions seems to be hot right now. The Smart Manufacturing Leadership Coalition has a couple going in conjunction with US government money. There is a bid out from the US government for development of some more, also related to energy efficiency.
The Industrial Internet Consortium announced its first energy-focused testbed: the Communication and Control Testbed for Microgrid Applications. Industrial Internet Consortium member organizations Real-Time Innovations (RTI), National Instruments, and Cisco, are collaborating on the project, working with power utilities CPS Energy and Southern California Edison. Additional industry collaborators include Duke Energy and the power industry organization – Smart Grid Interoperability Panel (SGIP).
I recently saw where an analyst positioned the IIC with the German Industry 4.0 initiative–while ignoring the US Smart Manufacturing group altogether. These advanced manufacturing strategies are showing some growth. Both of these have commercial technology companies solidly behind them. I would think that they will have more impact in the long run than SMLC. But we’ll see.
Here is some background from the IIC press release. “Today’s power grid relies on a central-station architecture not designed to interconnect distributed and renewable power sources such as roof-top solar and wind turbines. The system must over-generate power to compensate for rapid variation in power generation or demands. As a result, much of the benefit of renewable energy sources in neighborhoods or businesses is lost. Efficiently integrating variable and distributed generation requires architectural innovation.”
The goal of the Communication and Control Testbed is to introduce the flexibility of real-time analytics and control to increase efficiencies in this legacy process – ensuring that power is generated more accurately and reliably to match demand. This testbed proposes re-architecting electric power grids to include a series of distributed microgrids which will control smaller areas of demand with distributed generation and storage capacity.
These microgrids will operate independently from the main electric power grid but will still interact and be coordinated with the existing infrastructure.
The testbed participants will work closely with Duke Energy, which recently published a distributed intelligence reference architecture, as well as SGIP to help ensure a coordinated, accepted architecture based on modern, cross-industry industrial internet technologies.
The Communications and Control framework will be developed in three phases that will culminate in a field deployment that will take place at CPS Energy’s “Grid-of-the-Future” microgrid test area in San Antonio, Texas.
The initial phases will be tested in Southern California Edison’s Controls Lab in Westminster, CA.
