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ReVAMping the power industry
Highlighting the latest developments in industrial automation and
IT solutions for the Indian power sector, this feature discusses
the views of industry players to help the industry modernise and
enable efficient operations in the coming years...
As the global demand for power continues to outstrip
supply, expanding the power generation capacity becomes
quintessential. This calls for an efficient power generation
system to be established and sustained. However, the challenges
that confront the Indian power industry, such as, widening
demand-supply gap in power generation, low per capita power
consumption and poor risk management necessitate greater
utilisation of automation and information technologies for its
efficient operation & management. As such, it becomes
imperative that breakthrough automation and information
technologies are leveraged to the maximum towards this
objective.
Addressing the major challenges in the Indian power
industry and highlighting the latest developments in this arena
are industry giants such as G Ganapathiraman, Country
Manager, ARC Advisory Group India; Parag Marathe,
Engineering Manager, Power Generation Products, GE Power
& Water; Sunil Kumar Vupalla, Research Scientist, Infosys and
Pradeep Nair, Business Development Manager – Energy,
National Instruments.
Indian power sector: Now & then
Over the past decade, power plant control systems have
Megha Roy
Features Writer
megha.roy@publish-industry.net
A&D India | Dec’14-Jan’15
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According to Vupalla, such systems will be proactive in
predicting the issues much earlier before the problem occurs.
“Early warning system for wide area system stability, real time
monitoring for situational awareness are few examples in that
direction. With this, operators are playing the role of
supervisors rather than controller of the system. We can
control the system from anywhere but poses the challenges of
security, which needs to be taken care of. Besides, concept of
virtual power plants can provide more flexibility and efficiency
and it can do load aware power generation with short notice.
Micros-grid with small distributed power generation plants
and consumers becoming prosumers (producers & consumers)
is another trend observed these days,” he said.
Addressing the key challenges
According to Ganapathiraman, the demand supply gap in
theIndianpowergenerationnecessitatescapacityaugmentation
to be done at a quicker pace compared to developed economies.
“From the present capacity of around 243 GW, India plans to
add 76 GW by 2017 and additional 93 GW by 2022,” he said.
However, when compared to developed countries, it has
been observed that the cost per unit of power is more in India.
As such, it creates enough scope to improve on low cost of
operation & maintenance. “For safety and risk management,
the major black-out in 2012 indicates lack of coordination in
operating the power grid. Various organisations such as TSDSI
(Telecommunications Standards Development Society, India)
and ISGF (India Smart Grid Forum) are working towards
preparing the standards for India as well as participating in
international standard bodies. Compared to developed
countries, we need smart products at lower cost to support
massive rollouts,” asserted Vupalla.
In fact, it is not only the low cost. Much needs to be
addressed on maintaining the structure and productivity of
the Indian power sector too. Therefore, renovation and
modernisation of power plants is critical for efficient running
evolved from DCS-centered platforms (distributed control
system) with proprietary software, to open systems using
industry standard hardware and software, and then to totally
integrated plant automation systems with almost unlimited
connectivity and the ability to interrogate field instruments
from many different manufacturers. Sharing his thoughts on
thechangesexperiencedinthepowerindustry,Ganapathiraman
opined that unified architecture is the next big thing. “It is an
important step, especially when it comes to the supercritical
power plants. In a thermal power plant, DCS with fully
integrated turbine and boiler control system provides a
common engineering & operator environment. Under such a
platform, along with flexibility in operations, accurate process
information can be leveraged and delivered at the right time to
the right person within an individual plant, and possibly across
various geographically dispersed units, further enabling
operational excellence and higher reliability.”
On the other hand, Nair focuses on the next phase of
change that is quickly catching up, the emergence of software
centric hardware platforms, with better computation, control
& communication power. “These 3Cs together make the
platform turn into a state-of-the-art cyber physical system
(CPS). Currently, though the communication protocols
between various IEDs are standardised, the IED(intelligent
electronic devices) or other computing devices in the power
plant is still a black box. A software centric automation
platform like National Instrument CompactRIO system is
changing the way these IEDs are build, making it more open
and flexible. Using such technologies, the same platform with
appropriate I/O can be modified into various kinds of power
devices like PMUs, DCU, bay controllers, condition monitoring
systems, etc.”
Considering the technology driven market in India, it has
become imperative to have a technological presence in every
sector. As such, when it comes to the power industry, it has
been observed that Internet of Things and smart grid concepts
will make the industry experience various developments.
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of older power plants and ensuring high availability. In this
context, Ganpathiraman further added, “Projects like clean
coal technology (CCT) are being implemented to improve the
efficiency and environmental standards of conventional power
plants.”
How to modernise power plants?
It goes without saying that India is witnessing a
modernisation spree. Same applies to the power sector. As
such, the power plants can be modernised through automated
devices and control systems. “It needs to deploy new M2M
devices for real time monitoring of vibration, speed, turbine
protection and synchronisation. When these power plants are
installed with automated devices and control systems, the plant
operators should be trained to respond quickly for the system
raised alerts to increase safety and reliability of the plant.
Necessary security implementations need to be taken care in
the new infrastructure of the plant too. Cyber security is
another training element as the modernisation allows access to
control the plant remotely,” opined Vupalla.
It is also seen that there has been a continuous need to
invest in training and updating skills in India. Emphasising on
a strong database for an efficient power plant structure,
Ganapathiraman believes that the database needs to include all
critical and non-critical/major/minor assets in terms of their
procurement & operational phase. “While the main equipment
like boiler/turbine have 25-30 years of lifecycle; control systems
and HMI have short lifecycle of 3-8 years and need continuous
upgrades in terms of OS and hardware obsolescence. So, it is
essential that the O&M staffs at project sites are trained
adequately prior to systems failures that may lead to major
trips. Further, virtual technology and simulation of control
systems can be used in operator training programs to keep the
operator aware of dynamic plant scenarios,” he added.
When it comes to infrastructure, Nair opined that the
availability of communication networks like FO or GSM will
allow the latest IED to be installed in remote locations and be
networked to servers, making data accessible at a central
location. “Training plays a major role in the modernisation
program. There has to be a good hand-holding between
academia & industry to train engineers on the latest
technologies. We need to have a pool of trained engineers who
can analyse the large amount of data that these networked
IEDs generate in order to make the whole system work more
effectively. National Instruments works with various academic
institutes to set up state-of-the-art centre of excellence where
power engineers can be trained,” he added.
Facilitating efficient operations
The importance of automation in the power industries has
increased dramatically in recent years with the view to the
current energy situation and environmental issues. According
to Ganapathiraman, power companies are now progressively
leaning towards an “information driven” business model.
Using concepts like Big Data goes a long way in achieving this.
“As far as Industry 4.0 is concerned; Big Data and cloud
computing are its major facilitators. The progress towards a
digital enterprise is encouraging. With plant wide network
using intelligent automation and open communication
protocols, data integration is becoming increasingly easy and
enterprises are becoming more agile.”
Speaking on Big Data, Nair said, “If we talk about Big Data,
“Automation solution providers &
users can have a mutually beneficial
long term partnership”
Parag Marathe, Engineering Manager
Power Generation Products,
GE Power & Water
“Projects like clean coal technology
(CCT) are being implemented to
improve the efficiency and
environmental standards of
conventional power plants”
G Ganapathiraman, Country Manager
ARC Advisory Group India
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the largest or the biggest data is not generated by digital or
social media but by equipment’s like turbines and energy
meters.
If the data generated by all turbines in the power plants that
we have in the country is clubbed with the data generated by
PMUs on the transmission grid along with the ones generated
by AMR systems on the distribution grid then these analog
data generated are much bigger than the ones generated by
digital media for an equal timespan.”
In this regard, GE has come up with Predix – the software
platform for the Industrial Internet that enables predictive
insights from Big Data, business analytics and state-of-the-art
user experience. “To put it into perspective, if we are able to
offer just 1% of fuel savings for all gas power plants, it would
mean saving $ 66 billion over a period of 15 years. The potential
is huge,” said Marathe.
Integrating suppliers and users
Automation solution providers can have specific devices to
power plant sectors for synchronisation, vibration monitoring,
speed control, load control and turbine protection. Underlining
this thought, Vupalla opined that there is a role for system
integrators in customising automation solution to the need of
theusers.“Vendorselectionhasmovedbeyondtheconventional
terms of product/service offerings, as customers want a partner
who can address more than their technology requirements.
Moreover, a differentiated value proposition by the vendor
built on a consultative approach helps in bridging the end
user-client partnership expectations,” added Ganapathiraman.
Marathe further highlighted that automation solution
providers & users can have a mutually beneficial long term
partnership, based on how these solutions are enabling better
controls, better utilisation of assets and improving efficiency
by connecting deep domain knowledge to automation
technology advancements. “Pilot projects, for trying out the
latest technologies, are the best way to gain the confidence of
the user. By doing this, we can ensure a continuous engagement
between users and automation suppliers,” said Nair.
Can intelligent self-controlling power generation
become a reality?
Speaking on self-controlling power, Marathe believes that
power plants having single pushbutton start-up operations and
advancement of control & instrumentation systems already
exists. “However, this has still not reached the level of optimum
controls and that’s where our company with advanced
technology solutions can help power producers.”
On the other hand, Ganpathiraman said, “Self-controlling
power generation is unlikely to become a reality, because in a
thermal power plant there are more than 20,000 major
components and millions of other components to be connected
on real time.”
Moreover, in the fluctuating scenario of power supply,
generators can adjust the active, reactive power to compensate
power fluctuation. Highlighting this thought, Vupalla
concluded that M2M devices and actuators coupled with
analytics can make the intelligent self-controlling possible for
the power generators. ☐
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“Necessary security implementations
need to be taken care in the new
infrastructure of the plant”
Sunil Kumar Vupalla,
Research Scientist, Infosys
“Pilot projects, for trying out the
latest technologies, are the best way
to gain the confidence of the user”
Pradeep Nair, Business Development
Manager – Energy, National Instruments
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