Profile: Co-generation Plant - Gas Turbines
Foster-Wheeler owns and operates a number of co-generation plants in the United States. Trihedral Engineering was contracted to implement a plant-wide data logging system for Foster-Wheeler's GE gas turbines at their Martinez, California facility.
Within one week of receiving the order, Trihedral personnel implemented and installed the total system. The basis for the speed and ease of installation was Trihedral's monitoring and control software, VTS TM . The challenge for this project was the integration of the new system with the existing GE control panels which were to remain in place.
Within the time frame, the VTS monitoring system tapped into existing GE communications; logged data to disk for long term archiving; distributed the data via a local area network to other computers in the plant for on-line viewing of data; and provided a dial-in modem connection for remote access of the data from anywhere in the world. This entire project was built, installed, tested and commissioned while the plant was still running.
The installation was so successful that plant manager Phil Porter stated " VTS paid for itself within half an hour of installation. " This was because of a unit trip which occurred shortly after the VTS system was implemented. By reviewing all the monitored information, the cause was readily identified and liability was clearly established. This would have been nearly impossible to identify with the previous system.
This project demonstrated the capabilities of the software: to facilitate the design of a solution to solve the underlying problem; adapt to the existing equipment; and implement the system quickly without disrupting normal operations. Another key benefit of VTS for Foster Wheeler was that they are now able to support and perform upgrades to the system without reliance on the vendor.
Trihedral Engineering Limited has a long and enviable record of involvement in the utilities market. VTS features event-driven execution, automatic fail-over with multiple redundancy and powerful object-oriented tools. VTS has over 3,000 licenses worldwide.
