China’s Huaneng Dandong Unit 1 power plant completes major control system upgrade

New digital plant networking integrates functions, adds new wireless instrumentation.

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Dandong, China – A digital plant network, predictive maintenance software, a wireless network, temperature and pressure transmitters, and preservation of earlier investments all were included in a two-unit upgrade at the Huaneng Dandong power plant. The plant selected PlantWeb digital plant network platform from Emerson Process Management

Unit 1 has already migrated to Ovation from its older WDPF system. During that process the plant was able to preserve much of its earlier investment, existing I/O cards, field cabling, terminations and cabinets, as well as their intellectual property in the form of control logic, graphics, and database.

The migration took place during a 50-day scheduled outage that began last September. Since its return to commercial operation in early November, Huaneng Dandong Unit 1 has been running with its Ovation system that integrates boiler and turbine operations. Coordinated control of the boiler and turbine enhances unit-wide compatibility, improves unit stability, responsiveness, and thermal efficiencies.

The new system performs key data acquisition, monitoring, and control functions:

Boiler control system;

Sequence control system;

Electrical control system;

Furnace safeguard system;

Turbine and feedwater control; and

Approximately 6,000 I/O points.

“This modernization project was vital to our ability to continue to efficiently and reliably supply electricity to the Liaoning Provincial Power Grid,” says Zhiyong Wang, instrumentation and control specialist, Huaneng Dandong power plant. “Emerson’s automation and control technologies are already utilized by several plants owned by Huaneng Group, so we had great trust and confidence in selecting them for this project.”

The plant will also use Emerson’s AMS Suite predictive maintenance software and a Smart Wireless package featuring Rosemount wireless pressure and temperature transmitters to measure the cycle water temperature.

Edited by Peter Welander, process industries editor Control Engineering News Desk Register here to select your choice of free eNewsletters .