Cycle time for the PG procedure, which involves planning, preparation, logistics, calibration and actual testing over 12 weeks or more, can be cut to 6-8 weeks
Tata Power, a major private sector power producer, commissioned its 250 MW coal-fired Unit 8 at the Trombay thermal power station in Mumbai, India in 2009, to increase the total capacity of the facility to 1600 MW. Bharat Electricals Limited (BHEL), the power generation equipment OEM for the Trombay station, supplied, erected and commissioned critical main plant and balance-of-plant equipment under an EPC contract.
As part of the final contract handover, BHEL guaranted a performance baseline for the plant equipment and perform periodic verification.
BHEL was required to provide all of the instrumentation and measurement devices for conducting performance guarantee (PG) and performance evaluation tests.
Typically, the setup consists of hundreds of pressure, temperature and flow instruments, as well as flue gas analyzers, power supplies, MUX boxes, cable harnesses, cables, junction boxes, miscellaneous accessories and data logger/analysis software. This equipment is packed, unpacked, repacked again and hauled from one site to another to support performance tests. The capital investment in the instrument setup is approximately $1M. BHEL was facing a number of challenges involved in conducting the necessary PG tests, such as employing high-accuracy digital communications for instrumentation
Shortening setup and dismantling time, reducing hardware required for tests , and customer Value.
To overcome these challenges, BHEL selected Honeywell’s OneWireless solution for flexibility and efficiencies to overall PG test process.
Approximately $1M worth of CAPEX is locked into the PG test setup, and BHEL must maintain more than 20 percent spares inventory due to the probability of equipment failure. Obsolescence, failure replacement, and wear and tear caused by frequent installation/dismantling and calibration erode the capital value of the test equipment.
With an expected service life of five years for the instrument setup, which will be used to perform 120 PG tests, wireless technology will help save a total of $4.7M.
There are also indirect costs incurred by the end-customer, which can be reduced by as much as 50 percent as a result of improved cycle time and greater test efficiency. Cycle time for the PG procedure, which involves planning, preparation, logistics, calibration and actual testing over 12 weeks or more, can be cut to 6-8 weeks.
In addition, the standards-compliant OneWireless solution provides the ability to source instrumentation from multiple suppliers, ensuring vendor plurality and interoperability.
As part of the wireless system configuration, Honeywell XYR 6000 wireless temperature, pressure and flow transmitters were installed at various process points to measure key process parameters.
Multinodes were installed at vantage points within the power generation unit, and all monitored process measurement data was made available for real-time visualization, trending/historization reports and data export to Microsoft Excel. The Experion platform was used for data logging, analysis and reporting to support the PG test procedure.
The entire OneWireless infrastructure was installed and commissioned in just two days. BHEL evaluated the performance of the system in order to benchmark it against a conventional wired data acquisition system running in parallel.
“We have evaluated the results from the pilot program and compared them to those achieved from our conventional set up, and as a result of our positive experience with Honeywell’s OneWireless solution, we are actively considering a wireless system as part of our performance guarantee testing process,” said Senior Dy, general manager, Technical Services, of BHEL.