One of North America's largest hydro electric power generation sites is currently installing multiple copies of Trihedral's VTS TM software for process monitoring and control. VTS provides the key supervisory control in this 1,700 megawatt peak power generation complex.
Primary control of 32 generators, located in three distinct plants, is being performed by standard industrial programmable logic controllers (PLCs). All generators are linked by the PLC manufacturer's proprietary network which includes interfaces to the personal computers (PCs) running VTS in each plant and in the main control room. As well, all PCs are connected via Ethernet, providing a redundant network.
In each plant, VTS acts as the server for that specific plant and central control room as well as a client to the other plant servers on the network. There is a built-in redundancy capability utilizing both networks well as a daisy chain fail-over routing.
VTS provides information on power generation to the corporate local area network as well as adjacent utilities. The VTS installation will be expanded shortly to incorporate river control as well as control of several smaller plants.
Trihedral Engineering has a long and enviable record of involvement in the utilities market. VTS runs as a full 32-bit application on Windows 95 and Windows NT. It features event-driven execution based on state logic, automatic fail-over with multiple redundancy, security, remote monitoring and control via modem, and an unlimited number of both I/O and stations. Fully on-line configurable, the strength of VTS lies in its flexibility, speed, extensive built-in control capabilities, superb graphics and powerful object-oriented software tools.
Worldwide appeal of VTS is demonstrated by a large and satisfied customer base on four continents, with over 3,000 licenses.
