Honeywell Helps Thailand's First Supercritical Power Plant Maximize Capacity With Minimal Fuel Consumption
Bangkok, Thailand - Honeywell recently announced its Experion Process Knowledge System (PKS) has been selected to control operations for a new supercritical, 660-megawatt, coal-fired power plant near Bangkok. The plant is currently under construction in Map ta Phut, Rayong and will be operated by GHECO-One Ltd, an independent power producer (IPP) affiliate of Glow Group, a Thailand-based group of companies that supply electricity and steam.
The plant, scheduled to begin operation in 2011, will supply power to the state-owned Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand, which manages most of the country's power transmission network. The new facility is expected to increase production capacity in Thailand by 50 percent.
Designed to be environmentally-friendly, supercritical plants reduce fuel consumption while maximizing power generation. Supercritical boilers produce power more efficiently than standard boilers because they operate with startup valves and waterwall pressure controls, as opposed to drum-level controls. Because they operate at higher pressures and higher temperatures, however, a reliable control system is needed to protect against spurious boiler trips that can lead to safety incidents and equipment damage.
"Supply reliability and production efficiency are key objectives for GHECO-One because maintaining customer trust is paramount," said CI Choi, senior manager at Doosan Heavy Industries Co., the main contractor that selected Honeywell for the project. "We selected Experion for this project because it is a proven control platform used at hundreds of sites around the world with a strong track record for safety and reliability, and for improving production efficiency."
Experion is Honeywell's flagship control and automation platform for the process industries. It improves overall plant safety, reliability and efficiency by integrating with various subsystems such as process control, asset management and safety systems. Through this integration, Experion provides the most-relevant information to the right people at the right time, and helps operators make better decisions in the control room. GHECO-One operators will use Experion to control the Map ta Phut facility's boiler operations, as well as the balance of the plant.
Additionally, Experion can help reduce raw material costs with optimized control capabilities, which meets GHECO-One's objective of producing energy with a minimal amount of fuel consumption.
"Enhanced system efficiency is one of the biggest demands in plants today because it greatly impacts the overall business' bottom line," said H. Han, Domestic Business Leader at Honeywell Korea. "Plants that can produce more while consuming fewer raw materials can put their enterprises on a strong path to profitability, and solutions like Experion are designed to help meet that goal."
SOURCE: Honeywell