Distribution control system for combined cycle conversion power plant

Describes how a major middle east aluminium smelting plant is converting five gas turbines to combined cycle operation to produce power for 76 new reduction cells. This requires of the installation of five waste heat boilers which are fed with their associated gas turbine exhaust gases. The waste heat boilers operate in parallel to produce steam for a 65 MW steam turbine generator. The electrical output of which is rectified to produce the DC power for the reduction cells. An air cooled condenser condenses the steam from the turbine exhaust returning the condensate to the feedwater storage tanks. A distributed control system has been chosen to provide control and data acquisition for this plant. This is designed to optimise plant availability with no single point of failure jeopardising power supply to the reduction cells. It offers advantages of intrinsic security, cost effective redundancy and ease of use.<
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