Manx Electricity
Authority
New Computerised
Control Centre
The Brief
With a view to the
future, the Electricity Authority wanted to expand and diversify the power
supply in the Isle of Man. This expansion required the creation of a dedicated
combined control centre for the Island.
During normal operation one man should be able to
control 4 plants and monitor up to 15 separate display screens whilst at times
of high activity allowing a team of 7 or 8 engineers to work effectively
together in the same control room.
Dick Haycock of Hexatec was invited to propose an
integrated solution.
The Space
The construction of
new offices and workshop facilities alongside the new CCGT plant provided the
perfect space for the new Control Centre.
The Design
Working with MEA
staff and the architects (www.savagechadwick.com)
a design was agreed.
A central control position, and a video wall capable of
displaying any combination of control screens, allow one man operation.
Additional workstations allow several engineers to work together, with shared
information, on the video wall. An adjacent meeting room is used for
operational planning and as a visitor centre.
The Technology
As an almost
totally computerised control facility, it was necessary to future-proof the
design so the room was flood- wired with CAT5e cable to provide Ethernet
networks for control and information systems. To reduce noise and heat load the
majority of computers were located outside of the control room with the control
screens and keyboards driven by KVM extenders over Cat5.
As the video wall was fundamental to the operation, great
care was taken to select technologies that could be viewed in natural daylight
and could display any combination of control screens over Ethernet. A versatile
system using Mitsubishi DLT cubes was supplied by
www.harpvisual.com.
By bringing together many different systems into the same
control facility, it was essential that colours and symbols on each system had
the same meaning. A control screen standard was devised and
applied to all control system displays. (See
Operator Screen (HMI)
Design Guidelines.)
Despite the technology, it is impossible for one operator
to continuously monitor so many separate systems, so a centralised system was
developed using networked OPC technology to provide an overview display of all
operations (see
Centralised Operational Control).
OPC was also used to integrate information for trading and management purposes.
Comfort and ease of access to screens, keyboards and
control information is essential to any control room design, so great effort was
taken to select the correct control room furniture. The control desks and
seating were provided by SBFI (www.sbfi.com),
whilst other fixtures were sourced locally.
The Finished
Control Centre
The new power
station and control centre was opened by the Duke of Edinburgh on July 7, 2003.
If you are
considering a similar project please contact us. |
