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ABB controls run world’s largest poultry-fueled power station

03/07/2008

Thetford, Norfolk, U.K., March 5 – ABB is carrying out a major Evolution contract for EPRL (Energy Power Resources Limited) to upgrade the plant control systems at its 38.5 MW poultry-litter-fuelled power station in Thetford, Norfolk, to provide improved control and greater energy efficiency. In addition to upgrading the existing Harmony system to ABB’s System 800xA Process Portal operator interface, the project also includes the supply of a new control desk and the integration of other systems’ display data into System 800xA, as well as the supply of a new control desk and a single large screen TFT display.

ABB is also supplying its power generation information management system, which is intended to form part of a company-wide system for production information and reporting. This can easily be expanded in the future to provide additional optimization facilities for all EPRL’s power plants.

ABB’s “Evolution through Enhancement” life-cycle support strategy is designed to meet the needs of owners and operators of ABB automation systems who operate on tight margins, but still must rely on continuous, efficient operation of their process plant to remain viable. It provides a clearly defined path to enable their existing automation systems to evolve through a series of small, cost-effective steps to meet their changing commercial and technical business environments.

The cornerstone of Evolution is ABB’s Extended Automated System 800xA that extends the reach of traditional distributed control systems beyond control of the process to provide total plant management and control including, production management, safety, discrete and advanced control, information management, smart instrumentation, smart drives and motor control centres, asset management and documentation management capabilities.

Thetford power station is ABB’s second Evolution project for EPR and follows the successful installation of System 800xA at the 13.5 MW biomass-fuelled power station in Glanford, Lincolnshire.

In addition to the Evolution project, the contract has also included the transfer of hard-wired data from existing panels into the new control system, the provision of new operator work places, and a main control desk and integration of a number of separate displays onto one large TFT display to provide an immediate overview of the entire power plant operation.