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BUSINESS BENEFITS OF IMPLEMENTING
A NEW HYDRO-ELECTRIC PLANT
CONTROL SYSTEM
Álvaro Enrique Ávila Gutiérrez, Automatización Avanzada S.A.
Jacques Benoit, Cooper Power Systems,
Abstract-- This paper describes a hydroelectric power station
control system’s update process project. The project pursued the
following objectives: to improve operation of the hydroelectric
power station by implementing modern technology; to provide
redundancy for critical functions; to extract the maximum
amount of process information and make it available to the
organization in a timely fashion to make business decisions in
real time, with less errors; to establish the behavior of the
equipment in order to be able to reduce power consumption of
the generation power station; and finally, to implement the
complete project over a short period of time, with minimal costs.
Index Terms-- SCADA systems, Redundancy, Programming,
Relational databases, Internet, Security.
I. INTRODUCTION
I
n today’s world, we all want our projects to meet the
organization’s objectives. While a project’s implemented
functions may be closely related to daily activities, project
objectives are not often completely fulfilled.
In this paper, we will describe a project consisting of the
update process of the control system of a hydroelectric power
station. It has several elements that illustrate how planning
and monitoring can deliver the expected results.
A. Requirements
This project arisen from the needs to improve the operation
of hydroelectric generators, to retrieve and store operation
information, and to provide the capability to perform
subsequent analysis to prevent failures.
B. Project Development
Project development was based on the interaction between
the customer and the automation provider, so the resulting
application reflects the daily work experience of the involved
parties. The application’s functions are not limited to control
operations. Its design is based on the experience of
Supervision and Control System operators, and it provides the
required functions to assist them in the daily operation of the
plant.
The implementation was carried out without any plant
interruption, taking advantage of the planned downtime and
maintenance periods of each unit. Experience showed that
these improvements could be made in a single step.
II. THE PROJECT
The resulting application/system is designed as a clientserver architecture, which provides backup across a cluster
configuration, in order to ensure high availability. There are
currently six clients who are distributed over two operation
sites. The first site is used for engineering and development,
while the second site is the corporate headquarters located in
the city, away from the plant.
The system retrieves data from devices such as PLCs,
protective relays, fault recorders and meters from different
vendors. Data concentrators integrate data from the devices
providing protocol translation and communication functions.
Depending on the criticality of the process, the data
concentrators and communication network may be redundant,
if required.
The user interface’s screens are designed to match the
mode of operation of the plant in order to ensure comfortable
operation and a fast learning curve by the client. It implements
all aspects of modern information systems such as trends,
alarms, events and reports. It shares a database with all the
associated business systems providing operation, maintenance
and commercial online tools that support decisions in realtime.
A. Solution Proposal
In order to make this kind of development, it is essential to
keep in mind the following elements:
• Project information.
• Storage information capacity.
• New equipment selection.
• Modifications to the existing equipment.
• Availability to install new equipment.
• Easiness of integration of the Supervision and Control
system.
• Hardware and software redundancy.
• Work Schedule.
• Work Follow-up and verification.
Presented at 2008 IEEE PES T&D Latin America Conference and Exposition, Bogota, Colombia - August 13th to 15th, 2008
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• Daily, weekly, monthly and annual reports.
• Projections for decision-making.
Fig. 1. Supervisor and Control system Architecture.
B. Life cycle
The Project has a reach and a purpose in a determined time
frame in which we should consider the following concepts:
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Scalability
Reliability
Consistency with the needs
Integration with new products
Easiness of configuration
Easiness of operation
Easiness of maintenance
Event prediction
Event Analysis
Inter database data exchange
C. The Data
There are two main groups of information. The first one is
the operational data: it refers to measurements and the system
state. This type of data allows us to have a good view of the
state of the equipment, as it includes the faults and signal
statuses. The quantity of statuses can be roughly 10,000
points. The second group is the production data: the amount of
statuses can be around 1000 points.
The secret to the success of information broadcast towards
the organization lies in a good understanding of the enterprise.
It gives a competitive edge in the market. For this reason the
data should includes:
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Scheduled daily generation.
Production data.
Units, connection and disconnection events.
Development of the dam.
Production history data.
Dam historical data.
D. Project startup.
In the substation, there is a large variety of equipment that
has been installed in the last 4 years. All this equipment comes
from different vendors. To eliminate incompatibility between
protocols and communication systems, we had to install a
Communication Gateway. This module can make the task
feasible: it allows integration and concentration of the
information and it is the cornerstone of the Project’s startup.
Viewed from the corporate level, the information flow can
be seen as three different levels: Corporate Information, Status
and Control Information, and Generation Information. In the
organization, this Project is the center of the information
exchange. The information is received from the substation,
classified, processed and sent to the corporate level.
Command and control data is received from the corporate
level and sent to the substation.
The complete system is composed of three databases:
Supervision and Control, Energy Management system, which
includes the IEDs information, and the Corporate Database
where the information is processed and can be viewed by the
users.
Fig. 2. Structure of the information flow in the Hydro Electric plant.
E. Redundancy
The following elements of the Supervision and Control
system need to be redundant:
• Ethernet network ring.
• The supervisor system HMI.
• The communications gateway.
The following items dictate the need for redundancy:
• Fulltime operation.
• Information is concentrated through these elements:
o Some tool shares information.
o Information availability.
With this data, we can generate the following information:
• Actual daily generation.
• Indicators.
Presented at 2008 IEEE PES T&D Latin America Conference and Exposition, Bogota, Colombia - August 13th to 15th, 2008
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F. Actual system modification
Whenever an intervention of the Supervision and Control
system is required, small inline adjustments can be executed,
without major interference with the product.
G. Security
Security is very important and can be divided in two
sections: information and control, and operation.
For the information and control part, there are scheduled
backups taking place during normal system operation. For the
Supervision and Control part, a firewall prevents remote
access to the system.
For the operation of the supervision system, there are three
different user groups, each one of them having different
permissions based on knowledge and responsibility criteria.
All of the above is based on the IT’s politics, which
determine the frame of security and reliability that the
company should implement in its operations.
H. Capture and Storage of the Information
Part of the information is captured automatically; it is
exchanged between systems and stored in a main database,
which the operators and users can access to retrieve data.
I. Calculations
The information is divided in two groups:
i) The Hourly Production
This group includes all information that is generated every
hour, which is essentially:
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Scheduled generation.
Net energy.
Dam level.
Number of synchronized units.
through a Web site on the corporate intranet. This Web site is
continuously updated with production and market trends,
providing up-to-date information for decision-making.
Repetitive operator tasks that represented a high workload
have been automated to increase efficiency and to ensure that
the operator has sufficient time to perform production tasks
that improve the productivity of the enterprise.
Improving operational performance is an important goal,
but it should be kept in mind that there is a limit to everything,
and that it is necessary to seek balance between what the
customer wants and what is practical from the supplier’s
standpoint.
At the present time, information is available in real-time to
all parts of the organization, including production,
maintenance and also at the business level. Time-to-response
has also improved.
K. Results
The hydroelectric plant now has a modern high-tech
control system implemented with the latest generation
equipment, improving its reliability and availability. The
system provides the capability of taking actions in real-time
such as operation and maintenance, from all parts of the
company, including the business side. Administration now has
access to better information, which results in improved
decision making and planning based on more reliable
numbers.
III. BIOGRAPHIES
Alvaro Enrique Avila Gutiérrez (M’1888, F’17)
was born in Bogotá, Colombia, on January 27,
1981. He graduated from the ITD Francisco José de
Caldas School, and studied at the Escuela
Colombiana de Ingeniería.
His employment experience includes the
Automatiación Avanzada S.A., and Escuela
Colombiana de Ingeniería. His special fields of
interest include Supervision and Control Systems
and programming languages.
ii) Production Indicators
Production indicators are calculated for different time
periods like days, weeks or months; the different information
is needed for such calculations:
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Scheduled generation.
Actual generation.
Units service hours.
Time and reason of down time for each one of the units.
Generation capacity of the plant.
Dam level.
Percentage of generation in the system.
J. Benefits of the Project
One goal of the project was to present the information not
only to the operators, but also to the entire organization
Presented at 2008 IEEE PES T&D Latin America Conference and Exposition, Bogota, Colombia - August 13th to 15th, 2008