Digital Bus Application Experience - Power Generation

Noah Pennington
Gautam Chatterji
Mehdi Moutamani

ABSTRACT

This paper describes the use of digital bus/fieldbus technology on a combined cycle
power plant to reduce total installed cost and increase plant reliability and availability.
Examples and conclusions are based on General Electric’s (GE) power plant design
experience. Background and history are provided on bus technology and
adoption/penetration in various industries, including power generation. Interactions with
Engineering Procurement & Construction companies (EPCs) and end users are described,
where disadvantages and advantages of fieldbus technology for each group are addressed.
The disadvantages and advantages include material cost, engineering cost, prognostics and
analytics, installation, commissioning, device configuration, noise immunity, and reliability. A
fully integrated plant design using fieldbus technology is described, including verification,
segment design, and device type selection. Lastly, examples in validation and testing of
fieldbus technology in power plant design are provided, including a full-speed full-load test
stand, pre-commissioning of accessory skids, and onsite installation and commissioning. The
conclusion is that a properly planned and designed combined cycle power plant control
system utilizing digital bus technology has cost benefits and long-term operating and
maintenance advantages.

BACKGROUND

Fieldbus is a digital, serial, multi-drop, data bus for control and automation devices to
communicate across a shared medium. In other words, fieldbus is used in power plants,
factories and processing plants to connect devices to the controller for monitoring, control,
and analytics. There is a family of fieldbus protocols, which are standardized in IEC 61158
that are designed to communicate directly only with the devices of the same protocol for
information, monitoring, and control. Some examples of fieldbus protocols are found in the
process industry today include Foundation Fieldbus, PROFIBUS & PROFINET, HART, and
EtherCAT. One of the benefits of these protocols is their interoperability capability using the
same link, directly. This design characteristic enables the potential for field devices to make
decisions with minimal additional hardware and/or wiring (i.e. no need to wire the signal to a
controller or field installed programmable logic controller (PLC) for decision-making/control).

Fieldbus technology was developed and released to market in the 1980’s and early
1990’s and officially recognized by IEC with the first release of 61185 in 1999. In 2006, ARC

Distributed with permission of author(s) by ISA 2014

Presented at 57th Annual ISA POWID Symposium; http://www.isa.org
Advisory Group estimated the market penetration in the process industry of fieldbus was
predominantly in the chemical process industry (~21%), with electric power (~14%) slightly
lagging oil and gas (~15%) in 2006 total shipments, which was estimated to be a total of $832
M [1]. According to Sasajimat [2], in 2011, the total shipments of fieldbus solutions were
estimated to be $1,344 M with an estimated compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of over
13% through 2016. Power plant design experience over the past several years supports this
trend of growth in shipments of fieldbus technology. Part of this growth in shipments can be
attributed to the fieldbus technology replacing traditional, analog devices in the various
process industry markets.

In original equipment manufacturer (OEM) interactions with the EPCs and end users,
this shift in technology requires a change in the way the design engineering, plant installation
and commissioning, and service/site personnel team work on a power plant. A proper design
approach addresses these aspects systematically, where benefits are maximized across the
plant with savings in engineering, material, installation and commissioning costs. Also, the
technology enables savings in operational and maintenance costs by enabling advanced
diagnostics and predictive maintenance at equipment level mainly through the use of smart
devices. These devices are capable of including the deployment of OEM advanced
algorithms to bring customer value through process optimization across the combined cycle
power plant. An example bus segment design can be found in Figure 1.

Distributed with permission of author(s) by ISA 2014

Presented at 57th Annual ISA POWID Symposium; http://www.isa.org
 Figure 1 - Fieldbus Design Example

Fieldbus technology has many benefits, but one protocol/technology is not ideal for all
applications within the combined cycle power plant. There are disadvantages and
advantages for each fieldbus technology that should be recognized. The most efficient
integration methodology improves performance and reduces cost. This allows deployment of
fieldbus technology upwards of 80% in the plant with mechanical, electrical equipment and
process instrumentation. The optimal integration brings together a unique, rich operational
and predictive maintenance experience to the end user.

Distributed with permission of author(s) by ISA 2014

Presented at 57th Annual ISA POWID Symposium; http://www.isa.org
 ANALYSIS
ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES

The most frequent questions regarding fieldbus technology implementation in power

plants are around effort required for engineering, flexibility of design, cost and savings
opportunities, and data speed and control response times. This section is focused on
addressing these common questions.

A good engineering design using traditional I/O system or fieldbus technology has
common considerations such as:
a) Controls and instrumentation interface with the electrical and mechanical
equipment
b) Type, make, model, capability, accuracy and response of instrumentation/devices
c) Location and concentration of instruments / equipment in relation to the I/O cabinet
d) Functional system based and I/O type grouping for cable design
e) Partitioning of redundant I/O signals

Using these engineering design considerations, the engineering effort or cycle time for
designing with fieldbus technology is similar to designing a traditional I/O system. One key
difference is in the procurement cycle. In a traditional I/O system, the definition of controls
and instrumentation interface is usually after the selection of equipment vendor and
availability of vendor drawings. This makes controls design reactive, resulting in lost
opportunity for plant wide consistency, reduced cycle time by concurrent engineering, limited
enhancements and software optimization. The use of fieldbus technology moves the
definition of controls and instrumentation interfaces earlier in the equipment procurement
cycle where it is defined as part of the equipment procurement specification. This provides
the advantage of consistent plant-wide instrumentation, ensures interoperability with the host
control system, and supports advanced operability and maintenance applications that bring
value to commissioning team and the end user.

Even though it is relatively small when compared to the rest of the combined cycle
power plant, material cost is slightly higher for fieldbus compared to traditional I/O devices.
One reason can be attributed to fieldbus technologies having a lower overall volume, but this
volume is increasing (as mentioned in the background section), so it is expected that this
difference becomes less significant. Also, when making cost comparisons, a distinction
between material cost and total installed cost must be made. When comparing traditional I/O
to fieldbus technology on power plant designs, the total number of devices is reduced by
~10%, number of connections/terminations decreases by ~80%, and the commissioning cost
is reduced, which decreases the total installed cost even though the material cost is most
likely higher. Another cost that needs to be considered is training cost. As with any new
technology or equipment, there is initial training cost for the engineering, operations, and
maintenance teams on fieldbus technology. This cost essentially goes away after the initial
learning curve. Lastly, the overall maintenance afterwards is simpler with access to all
parameters and diagnostics from the operator or maintenance station. Adding or modifying

Distributed with permission of author(s) by ISA 2014

Presented at 57th Annual ISA POWID Symposium; http://www.isa.org
fieldbus devices and segments in the field may require more engineering (ex. device and
control loop time assessment), but this situation needs to be limited with proactive plant
design with integrated controls and instrumentation, including the use of 3-D modeling.

For some fieldbus technologies, only one cable is required from the device coupler to
the control system to connect multiple devices with increased distance from the control
system because the device information is included on the power supply line. Using this one
cable for power and data does have potential limitations, where control loop update rates and
data capacity in the fieldbus segment designs should be considered as part of the proactive
plant design. One of the benefits of having fieldbus as part of the plant design - prior to
procurement and installation - is the opportunity to pre-wire and pre-configure instruments in
the factory, which results in “plug-n-play” installation on site. Also, some fieldbus devices are
not sensitive to polarity and the use of connectors make the installation very quick with no
need of special tools or handheld devices. These fieldbus devices have segment layouts that
can be factory tested and validated, thus reducing potential design errors and project cycle
times. There is flexibility in the selection of make, model and location of instrumentation and
devices as long as certain key controls interface requirements are considered and supported.

It is pertinent to mention that site installation considerations for fieldbus technology are
as critical as good engineering practices to maximize the benefits that the technology has to
offer. Some feedback on the technology is that it is too much work with limited cost savings.
However, a deeper investigation on these prior installations reveals limited technology
deployment, use of unnecessary junction boxes, larger than needed cable trays/conduits,
standard wiring, numerous terminations and field instrument calibrations. With the correct
plant-level engineering approach and deployment, junction boxes are replaced by plug-n-play
device couplers, cable trays are reduced in size, conduits replaced by wire baskets (due to
improved electromagnetic compatibility, EMC), and an overall reduction in termination and
field instrument calibrations. The “field” part of fieldbus implies that the network bus is meant
for tough environments when it comes to EMC. That is why the fieldbus general
specifications concerning the physical layer (OSI model) ensures that the type of cables,
length of cables and bandwidth are acceptable for harsh environments, including power
plants. For most protocols, clear electrical guidelines for fieldbus technology maximizes
immunity to noise and ensure proper communication at all times. The technology enables
savings in all these aspects of installation, which is not limited to reduction in number of
wires. It is anticipated that a plant design leveraging the corresponding practices for plant
controls and instrumentation results in a total installed cost savings in excess of 10% when
compared to a traditional I/O system. This is a win for customers, EPCs and OEMs.

Commissioning fieldbus technology takes less time thanks to the pre-commissioning of

fieldbus instrumentation at the factory. Also, fieldbus technology greatly simplifies the
commissioning process, onsite or at the factory. Devices are self-recognized by the control
system. Thus, the actual commissioning only consists of associating the detected device with
the pre-configured device in the control system and a download of all the parameters.
Fieldbus technology allows the control system to own the parameters of all the instruments
and make them available to the operator directly from their engineering station without the

Distributed with permission of author(s) by ISA 2014

Presented at 57th Annual ISA POWID Symposium; http://www.isa.org
need of specific tools. Main fieldbus protocols successfully standardize most of the
parameters common to each type of device. As a result, the configuration is easier to
interface to and specific handheld equipment or laptop computers are not required for local
connection (ex. configuration and maintenance).

In addition to the benefits described, fieldbus provides end users prognostics/analytics

capability and increased reliability. All fieldbus devices are smart devices, meaning that
devices will be able to self-test and detect various levels of failures and report this information
to the control system, which can adapt the response depending on the severity (ex. alert,
diagnostic, and failure). With extended diagnostic details and the alarm management system,
the operator or maintenance team can take proactive steps to avoid unexpected downtime.
Fieldbus technologies include communication layers with additional health information from
the devices that provide the control system with a clear view of the overall system health and
can act accordingly. The reliability improvement comes from the proactive capability
described and the reduction of overall components, including wires, devices (ex. pressure
switches), and terminations.

RESULTS

Most fieldbus technologies are segment-based where multiple devices are connected
in the end to a single pair of cables. Depending on the technology, the impact of the number
of devices can vary such as response time over the segment, noise, signal level, cable
length, or address limitations. The redundancy philosophy is also a major point of interest
using fieldbus. The segment design engineering role needs to take into account, for every
system and sub-system, every control loop, the initial requirements in term of response time,
redundancy and maximum length and ensure that the electrical and installations
specifications are met to keep noise level and signal level in range. This is cross-functional
engineering work that pulls together controls and instrumentation, electrical, mechanical, and
reliability teams to agree on the best arrangement of the devices to meet all criteria and bring
all the value to the customer.

The suggested cross-functional engineering work includes a typical design

progression:

Training /
Technology Rules / System Device Selections / Device Testing /
Optimization
Knowledge / needs Segment design Plug & Play
Benchmarking

Some recent fieldbus design examples are provided below:

 Integrated controls system and fieldbus integration testing for an entire combined-
cycled power plant (including gas turbine, steam turbine, heat-recovery steam
generator, and generator) has been achieved using table top components and
simulations, including fieldbus configuration and segment design.

Distributed with permission of author(s) by ISA 2014

Presented at 57th Annual ISA POWID Symposium; http://www.isa.org
  A gas fuel accessory skid had a device reduction of ~50% by using fieldbus
technologies. There could have been more device reduction if the fieldbus
communication protocol was safety certified and market-ready.
 A gas fuel conditioning accessory skid using 100% fieldbus devices - including
monitoring, control and protection - resulted in a reduction of instrumentation devices
by 50% and the number of cables going to the control system was reduced by 70%.
 The overall commissioning process using fieldbus devices instead of classic analog
I/O is estimated to be 8 times quicker. This is based upon experience in Belfort,
France where a water accessory skid and ~40 sensors were added to the existing test
stand.
 Fieldbus technology is integrated with the Full-Speed Full-Load gas turbine test stand
located in Greenville, SC.

In general, accessory skids can be fully tested at the factory with instrumentation and
wiring before shipping to a test stand or to site. This pre-commissioning process allows for
drastically reduced time on site since the major part of the wiring has been completed,
verified, and all calibrations have been done. The field installation only requires connection of
the fieldbus trunks. With the factory tested configuration software, the skid is ready to use.
This is a pure example of plug & play.

CONCLUSIONS

Fieldbus technology is becoming a standard part power plant designs due to the many
benefits described. However, fieldbus does not appear to be the only technology needed for
power plant design. Fieldbus technology, traditional I/O, and all future control and device
mediums need proper technical planning, evaluation, and testing. Lessons learned for all of
these technologies need to be shared so that the power generation industry can continue to
adopt the right technology for the right application.

REFERENCES

1. Hollywood, P., O’Brien, L., Fieldbus Solutions in the Process Industries Worldwide
Outlook, ARC Advisory Group, 2007
2. Sasajimat, H., Fieldbus Foundation End User Seminar, HCMC, Vietnam, June 12,
2012

Distributed with permission of author(s) by ISA 2014

Presented at 57th Annual ISA POWID Symposium; http://www.isa.org