Experion PKS Virtualization minimises hardware costs
September 2014
IT in Manufacturing
North Carolina based Progress Energy is a subsidiary of Duke Energy and until its 2012 merger was a Fortune 500 energy company with more than 21 000 MW of generation capacity and $9 billion in annual revenues. Progress Energy includes two major electric utilities that serve approximately 3,1 million customers in the Carolinas and Florida.
Challenge
This project focuses on upgrading the radiation monitoring system to integrate with Experion PKS. The primary challenge to overcome in this implementation is replicating the plant design in the operator training simulator in a non-hardware intensive, cost effective manner.
Solution
“Using Honeywell’s virtualisation technology, we were able to implement a lot of the project requirements using software to minimise the hardware cost. We had previously evaluated perhaps a dozen different available distributed control systems and narrowed it down to three finalists,” says Dave Hooten, supervisor of major projects at the Harris Nuclear Plant.
“We chose Honeywell for this project based on previous successes with upgrade projects. In addition, our long-term goal is to integrate our instrumentation and control system upgrades into the Experion PKS so they have one common operator system in the main control room.”
Results and benefits
“We are very satisfied with the return on investment, not just from an immediate standpoint, but also from the way we are positioned to continue to benefit from the investment for future additions. The thing we like best about the Honeywell product and services is the continual innovation and advancement of the products. The service we get from our account manager is outstanding. Whenever there is an issue or a problem, we call him and, in no time at all, it seems that we have a solution and a resolution to the issue,” explains Hooten when asked to characterise the results of this project.
Since completion at the end of 2013, the radiation monitoring system upgrade to Experion PKS has provided the following primary benefits:
* Enabled Progress Energy to retire certain ageing legacy technology that was becoming increasingly unreliable and placing a burden on maintenance.
* Changing the topology of the system allowed Progress Energy to eliminate some unneeded radiation monitors, thereby reducing operating and maintenance costs
* Enabled Progress Energy to replace older control room HMI technology with the Experion HMI.
About Experion PKS Virtualization
For many of today’s manufacturers, the process control environment requires separate servers to support different applications. Virtualisation resolves this issue by allowing a single server to run multiple operating systems and applications simultaneously. It also improves reliability by insulating these operating systems from hardware changes and the resulting net benefit is lower operational costs.
Honeywell Process Solutions’ virtualisation offerings are developed with VMware, the world’s largest supplier of virtualisation products and solutions. These solutions help industrial plants reduce PC hardware requirements and minimise the frequency and impact of operating system and hardware changes while simplifying overall system management and improving availability, reliability and disaster recovery.
HPS’ holistic approach to industrial virtualisation encompasses the delivery and support of virtualisation infrastructure uniquely tailored to the needs of the process control industry. Additionally, Honeywell provides a full range of applications that can be supported through virtualisation, providing end users with a complete solution straight out of the box.
For more information contact Boni Magudulela, Honeywell Southern Africa, +27 (0)11 695 8000, [email protected], www.honeywell.com
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