2010-06-06 - A state-of-the-art ABB distributed control system is helping Aluminium Bahrain improve the energy efficiency of its six gas turbines in power station 3, thereby helping the aluminum giant to save energy and reduce nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions – a significant contributor to global warming.
Aluminium Bahrain (ALBA) is one of the world’s largest producers of aluminium, powered by four stations producing 2265-megawatts of smelting power. In Bahrain, ALBA recently upgraded two of the power stations in line with the kingdom’s initiatives to promote green technology. The upgrade involved shifting to environmentally-friendly gas turbine technology at power station 3 and Rifaa phase II. ALBA upgraded six of its single-silo combustor gas turbines to low-NOx gas turbines.
"With the new ABB solution in place we are now able to effectively increase energy efficiency of the turbines and therefore drastically reduce NOx emissions, which means lower environmental impact", says Amin Sultan from Aluminium Bahrain.
Low-NOx gas turbines are able to run at high engine efficiency while minimizing emissions of nitrogen oxides and carbon monoxide from the engine. However, in order to reach their full potential these turbines require an efficient control system coupled with necessary electrical modifications. To this end, ALBA selected ABB to design, install and commission a control system that would maximize the gains from their new green initiative.
Finding a future-proof solution
After carefully assessing the company's needs, ABB delivered PROCONTROL P14 DCS, a modular scalable system with easy expansion capabilities for large power plants. This system was installed in six of the new gas turbines in ALBA during planned outages.
“The control system designed by ABB is exactly what we were looking for," says Amin Sultan, power, utilities maintenance and projects manager at Aluminium Bahrain. "With the new solution in place we are now able to effectively increase energy efficiency of the turbines and therefore drastically reduce NOx emissions, which means lower environmental impact. This is a high priority for our company and the industry as a whole."
Simplifying maintenance and usability
Key advantages of the ABB system include very low maintenance and inventory costs due to minimum number of modules; all modules are intelligent with self-diagnostics. The benefits don't stop there; the system is also very user-friendly and offers uniform hardware for the power plant DCS as well as the plant’s protection system, ensuring smooth interoperability and optimizing maintenance spares.
On the protection front, the system has a proven track record for reliable and enhanced implementation of power plant protection system. For the above upgrade project, ABB has implemented a 2-channel protection system with reliable self monitoring functionalities. Therefore, in the event of a protection or load trip shedding the system will go into safe mode by reducing the load at a pre-determined rate, thereby preventing any hazardous situations for plant personnel and equipment.