Activity

  • #POWERGEN 2017 Preview: Helping Power Generators Address the Skills Gap

    Jim Cahill
    Author: Douglas Morris A January 2017 report from the U.S. Energy Department states: Workforce retirements are a pressing challenge. Industry hiring managers often report that lack of candidate training, experience, or technical skills are major reasons why replacement personnel can be challenging to find—especially in electric power generation. The wave of retirements has been talked about for years and…

  • #POWERGEN 2017 Preview: Flexible Operations

    Jim Cahill
    Author: Douglas Morris The new plants that are coming online today are already designed for fast start and flexible operations. With the changing generation mix, being able to move a unit is essential as fleets dispatch more renewables. But what about older plants that were designed to operate as baseload generation? Sometimes units must be mechanically retrofitted to be able to better participate in the market…

  • Cybersecurity Planning and Preparation

    Jim Cahill
    A digital transformation is well underway with many manufacturers striving to improve safety, reliability, efficiency, emissions and/or throughput. The Industrial Internet of Things is making it possible to monitor more areas of the production operations than was possible in a fully-wired technology era. A strong cybersecurity program must go hand in hand with this digital transformation. In an Automation World article…

  • #POWERGEN 2017 Preview: Microgrids and Controls

    Jim Cahill
    Author: Douglas Morris Microgrids are collections of generating sources that are coupled to operate as one either connected to or disconnected from (islanded) the main power grid (sometimes called the macrogrid). Being able to independently provide one’s power is becoming popular with standalone entities like colleges or universities, military bases, and remote locations. Hawaii is embracing microgrids and has recently…

  • Automating Combined-Cycle Power Generation Startups

    Jim Cahill
    In combined cycle power plants : …the heat of the gas turbine’s exhaust is used to generate steam by passing it through a heat recovery steam generator (HRSG) with a live steam temperature between 420 and 580 °C. The condenser of the Rankine cycle is usually cooled by water from a lake, river, sea or cooling towers . Over the past decades, combined cycle power plants were built to handle base electrical loads…

  • Successfully Addressing NERC CIP Cybersecurity Standards

    Jim Cahill
    The power industry is perhaps the furthest along in hardening their cybersecurity defenses due to the work of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) on the critical infrastructure protection (CIP) cybersecurity standards—now at version 6 . In a Power magazine article, Tackling NERC CIP and Cybersecurity at America’s Largest Gas-fired Cogeneration Plant , this electrical energy and steam energy producer…

  • Network Architecture Considerations in Ovation Control Systems

    Jim Cahill
    Emerson’s Craig McDaniel provided an overview on the Ovation control system network architecture at the 2017 Ovation Users Group conference. He provided a basic overview of Ovation’s network architecture showing standard configurations, connectivity, redundancy, IP addressing schemes, port assignments, network hardware, and connections to third party equipment will be provided in this session. He also discussed the traffic…

  • Reducing Control System Hardware Footprint

    Jim Cahill
    Emerson’s Ben Skal presented on reducing the Ovation distributed control system hardware footprint at the 2017 Ovation Users Group conference. Virtualization technology is at the heart of this hardware footprint reduction and having less workstation and server hardware to maintain. Ben’s presentation focused on: What is virtualization & how it works Appropriate uses of virtual machines (VMs) Benefits of VM…

  • Take Charge of Partial Discharge to Protect Plant Assets

    Jim Cahill
    Emerson’s Jonathan Murray discussed partial discharge solutions at the 2017 Ovation Users Group conference. Unplanned electrical asset failures can halt production and amount to millions of dollars of associated costs. The IEEE and NFPA organizations identify Partial Discharge (PD) , a breakdown of the assets insulation, as a leading cause of failure. Manufacturers are looking for ways of transitioning away from traditional…

  • Model Predictive Control in Power Generation

    Jim Cahill
    Model predictive control in power generation was the subject of a 2017 Ovation Users Group presentation by Emerson’s Ranjit Rao . Rajit opened comparing classical control with model-based control. In classical control, a proportional-derivative-integral loop is used with feedback. There is a setpoint, the actual process variable and the error or difference between the process variable and setpoint. Based on the dynamics…

  • Simulation for Training and Engineering Applications

    Jim Cahill
    At the 2017 Ovation Users Group conference, Emerson’s Bob Kerestes and Sheldon Willis gave an update embedded simulation in the Ovation system. Sheldon opened the presentation describing types of uses for simulators for training and engineering. For training simulators, simulations can range from simple tie-back models to high-fidelity models which simulate the dynamics of the running process. For high-fidelity simulation…

  • Generator Excitation 101

    Jim Cahill
    Generators turn mechanical energy into electrical energy by moving electrical conductors in a magnetic field. Excitation creates the electromagnetic field to make this mechanical to electrical conversion occur. Emerson’s Rich Dennis provided a basics presentation on excitation control at the 2017 Ovation User Group meeting. Excitation control includes synchronous machine regulation, exciter, synchronous machine for…

  • Suite of Cybersecurity Technologies and Practices

    Jim Cahill
    Emerson’s Adam Boeckmann presented the Power and Water Cybersecurity Suite at the 2017 Ovation Users Group conference. He opened describing the team that formed over the last several years that now supports more than 200 sites in the U.S. alone. He shared the story of the recent Wannacry/WannaCrypt ransomware cyber-attack. In March of 2017, Microsoft released a patch. A month later, the National Security Agency (NSA…

  • Applying Threat Intelligence for Industrial Control System Defense

    Jim Cahill
    There are many paths to pursue in improving cyber defenses for industrial control systems (ICS). At the 2017 Ovation Users Group conference, Emerson’s Tom Kizer presented on applying threat intelligence for system defense. Tom opened by acknowledging that identifying effective threat intelligence is difficult. Threat intelligence is data collected, organized, analyzed and refined about potential or current attacks…

  • Microgrid Monitoring and Control

    Jim Cahill
    At the 2017 Ovation Users Group conference , Emerson’s Fred Huff presented on microgrid controls. Fred opened describing a microgrid as one that could stand alone or connect to the larger electrical grid. Components include distributed generation (DG), loads—critical and non-critical, energy storage systems (ESS), points of common coupling (PCC) and a microgrid controller. Fred focused on the control components of…

  • Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity Trends and Compliance

    Jim Cahill
    As critical infrastructure, cybersecurity remains a top concern for electrical power, water and wastewater industry companies. At the 2017 Ovation Users Group conference , Emerson’s Jaime Foose led a panel of trends in cybersecurity threats and compliance. The panel included experts from National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center (NCCIC)/ Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team (ICS…

  • Reliable Electrical Power and Utilities at the University of Texas

    Jim Cahill
    As a University of Texas electrical engineering graduate, it is great to hear a success story on the successful electrical load control using Emerson technology on the main campus in Austin, Texas. The campus operates an independent electrical grid but connects back to the Texas electrical grid. The utilities department has a $2.8 million operating budget. The utilities group produces 140MW of electrical power and provides…

  • Simulator Helps Drive Cultural Change Toward Operational Excellence

    Jim Cahill
    At the 2017 Ovation Users Group conference, there was a presentation by an electrical power producer on driving cultural change and operational excellence through the use of simulation in the Ovation distributed control system . The facility had a 92% capacity factor so it was basically running all the time. The facility was challenged with aging workers and losing valuable experience. They decided to commit to a formal…

  • Technology Advancements for Power, Water & Wastewater Industries

    Jim Cahill
    At the 2017 Ovation Users Group conference, Emerson’s Steve Schilling discussed the rapid changes going on in the power, water and wastewater industries and the changes in technology required to keep up with these changes. Steve opened highlighting some of the key issues worrying people in these industries—reliability, reliable integration of renewables and distributed energy resources (DER), security, aging infrastructure…

  • Comprehensive Cybersecurity for Critical Infrastructure

    Jim Cahill
    The electrical power generation and distribution industries, especially here in the U.S., have a long history in working to improve reliability and security. This history goes back to the establishment of the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) in the late 1960s as a response to a widespread blackout in the Northeastern U.S. NERC became the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (also NERC)…

  • Upcoming Ovation Users’ Group Conference

    Jim Cahill
    Two weeks from now, July 23-27 2017, will be Emerson’s Power & Water Solutions business unit’s Ovation Users’ Group conference . This year will mark its 30 th year. The Ovation Users’ Group is managed, guided, and run exclusively by its members, with Emerson’s Power & Water Solutions business unit providing financial, personnel, and product support as necessary. This conference is put together by Ovation and WDPF control…

  • Avoiding Dangerous Malware Infections

    Jim Cahill
    The malware WannaCry/WannaCrypt has been all over the news recently. Since most of the operator and engineering workstations used in distributed control systems (DCSs) and supervisory control and data acquisition systems (SCADA) are PC-based, the question was naturally could these have been/or be impacted by this dangerous malware. I caught up with Emerson’s Jaime Foose . She noted that it is important to point out…

  • Different Approaches for Managing DCSs and Enterprise Systems

    Jim Cahill
    Author: Dennis Tkacs Why do computer driven systems fail? It’s a subject I want to develop over the next few blog posts. And by fail I don’t mean technically, but rather why do they fail to meet the business cases under which their procurement was initially justified? There are multiple reasons and none have to do with technology. Rather, it has to do with governance and to fully understand the implications we have…

  • Power-Gen International—Heightening Plant and Fleet Readiness

    Jim Cahill
    If you’re in the power generation industry and attending (or considering attending) next week’s Power-Gen International conference in Orlando, Florida USA, make sure to connect with the Emerson team in Booth 1849 . They are ready to listen to the challenges you face and offer ways to heighten your plant and fleet readiness to help improve availability and gain more efficiency from your operations and workforce. Register…

  • Technology Enhancements Simplify Foundation Fieldbus

    Jim Cahill
    I want to once again elevate the comments of Emerson’s Jonas Berge around the topic of educational materials for the Foundation fieldbus digital communications technology. In a post, For Foundation Fieldbus Segment Design-Use Typicals Approach , a commenter asked: Fieldbus technologies have always presented an element of fear amongst the “uninitiated” user. Is there a Fieldbus Installation Tips 101 anywhere that…

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