With renewable penetration in to the country’s grid and micro grid systems the use of battery energy storage is becoming more widespread. Gensrv are implementing Hybrid control systems to optimise a number of microgrid deployments. Here these systems manage the facility spinning reserve whilst not impacting reliability of supply. System owners can therefore implement more renewable within their system and the battery storage takes care of the volatility in generation. Furthermore, the implementation of the storage allows for the reduction in spinning reserve. In many cases these microgrids are operated at number of generators in N-1 thereby allowing for a single loss. The impact to OPEX is in both operation at lower efficiency and direct maintenance costs.

Here we see a typical Rankin cycle for a thermal power plant. As we move in to a new energy market with an increase in Solar Phot Voltaic production we need to address the instability associated with this PV generation. This may be cloud events or just start and end of day sun events. As such modifications can be applied to the cycle to improve the ability of the system to respond to low frequency events. (1), (2) alterations to the steam turbine inlet to improve the swallowing capacity of the turbine. (3) reduction in condensate flow through LP heaters and to DA thereby allowing this flow to pass through the turbine generating more energy. (4) High pressure heater bypass again to reduce the extracted energy from the steam turbine and thereby generate more power.

It must be remembered that most of the methods covered here reduce the cycle efficiency of the process to improve its power output over a short period of time. It is also necessary to consider the thermal impact of cycling some of the metal components.

One of the common requests we are asked about is the upgrading of older control systems on generators. Here we are working on a Cummins C200d5 generator set with a PCC3201 control system. The owner wishes to upgrade the system to allow communication back to their SCADA system and also provide a more functional interface. In this case we recommended the upgrade on the system using a DSE 8610 Mk2 product. Here we see the removal of the old wiring to the central controller whose function will now be performed by the SCAD system. After this we removed from the old controller the Paralleling circuit board, display board, PT board and CT board. Connections were then made to the DSE unit. In order to get the base board to talk to the DSE we also have to reprogram the CPU to know the other boards have been removed and install a new CAN definition file. When all done the engine, wiring is much simpler and now with full remote functionality over Modbus TCPIP to the overall SCAD system.

Here at Gensrv we continue to explore new ways to add stability to networks. As we are aware many forms of renewable energy are intermittent at best. A good example is solar PV where significant energy swings can be introduced by cloud cover. In the last months we have been busy working on the sky camera system. Here we image the sky 4 times a minute and through software track cloud movement and opacity etc. These images provide future cloud cover data to our control equipment. Here we see a control screen for such a system providing in this case a 12 minute and 30 minute look ahead. We use this technology to smooth the solar PV output. The system automatically controls the set points of all inverter's and shapes for grid stability.

It's not all electrical in Power Plant design. Here we see one of our engineers working on 3D pipe design for a facility. This design work starts of in a process flow package such as "Pipe Flow Pro" which allows us to determine pipe and pump sizes to meet the consumer need. When pipe size is known we move to 3D drawing where we plot the positions of the end consumer and supply system to scale. With these points known a 3D model is generated using actual fitting, pipe and equipment data. From this model we can then generate the general arrangement drawings, the isometric drawings and bill of materials. These documents allow the procurement of parts and instruct how to assemble the system at the facility. In some cases we also perform stress analysis on the structures in another package.

Another busy week this time working with PLC and SCADA code. In this case a PLC management system for a generation fuel farm. here we control from two bulk tanks via a 3 way duty standby pump system to two day tanks. Spil from these is routed back to one of the two bulk tanks. Back in times past we always had panels full of gauges and buttons however today we use "Soft" desks. This example is in Citect 2018.