Professional Documents
Culture Documents
68|14
The customer magazine
of ABB Switzerland Ltd
Power Control, Excitation Systems
UNITROL now
04
Retrofit at AGL Loy Yang power station
UNITROL 6800 meets Australia’s grid code
requirements.
08
Grid code compliance
Fault-Ride Through capability - A key challenge
in network connection regulations.
10
Center of excellence, India
Welcome to Nelemangala; India’s center of
excellence for excitation systems.
12
Quality and timely support
Service agreements - reducing downtime
through guaranteed service.
UNITROL now 68 | 1 4 • The customer magazine of ABB Switzerland Ltd, Power Control, Excitation Systems • Copyright 2014 ABB • Magazine available as
electronic copy only • Publisher: ABB Switzerland Ltd, Excitation Systems • Tel: +41 (0)58 589 24 86 • Fax: +41 (0)58 589 23 33 • E-mail: pes@ch.abb.com •
Contents and design: Mayerline Jimenez, Claudia Bingen • Any use of text or photo requires the written consent of the publisher
Dear Reader,
First of all, as we move through the first rience the benefits of UNITROL 1020 at
quarter of 2014, I’d like to take this oppor- a small hydro power plant (see page 7).
tunity to personally thank you for your
interest, trust and support that you have Our local engineering center for excita-
shown in our UNITROL, SYNCHROTACT tion systems in India opens its doors to
and MEGATROL products/systems in the you on page 10, showing off some of the
past year. excellent work that the team undertake.
In this issue of UNITROL now we focus on Service agreements play a pivotal role in
the subject of grid codes. On page 4 dis- ensuring the uptime of our equipment.
cover how the grid code requirements at On page 12 we take a look at our ser-
Australia’s AGL Loy Yang power plant were vice agreements and discover how valu-
Aija Mankkinen successfully met using UNITROL 6800. able they can be to you.
Head of Excitation Systems On page 8 we describe grid code com-
pliance and show how UNITROL excita- Finally we take a look at the excitation
tion systems are complying with the most systems course program for 2014 and
demanding network requirements. provided by the ABB University as well
as upcoming events where you can meet
A further important topic is functional safe- our experts.
ty and reliability in power plants. Recently
excitation systems for two nuclear power I hope you enjoy reading this issue of
stations in Switzerland successfully passed UNITROL now.
vibration testing (see page 6). Meanwhile,
in Vietnam, we report on the installation Kind regards
of UNITROL 6000 motor excitation at a Aija Mankkinen
power plant while Limmatkraftwerke expe-
Application News
04 A steam turbine with a heart of UNITROL 10 India’s center of excellence
First UNITROL 6800 commissioned at AGL LEC India opens its doors to reveal the center of
Loy Yang power station, Australia. excellence for excitations systems.
06 Protection of emergency generators 11 Marketing and communications, Switzerland
Protection of nuclear power plants with highly Meet the new team member at excitation systems
reliable excitations systems - UNITROL 6080. in Turgi.
06 Motor excitation at Vietnamese power plant
The largest coal-fired thermal power plant in
Vietnam installs UNITROL 6000.
Service
07 Perfect solutions for small hydro power 12 Service agreements
plants A flexible option to keep plants fully operational.
UNITROL 1020 as an automatic voltage 14 Excitation systems course program 2014
regulator in Limmatkraftwerke AG, Baden. A range of courses are available at ABB University
for excitation systems, services and technologies.
D
uring the Australian summer of excitation systems. ABB already has an commission the units and successfully
2012 the first UNITROL 6800 established reputation together with solid reconnect them to the network. The com-
static excitation system (SES) references in Australia. In order to cope missioning took only 24 hours by utilising
was successfully commis- with the plant’s space limitations, AGL two teams with two commissioning engi-
sioned at the AGL Loy Yang power plant Loy Yang, ABB Australia and ABB Swit- neers in each team.
with support from the ABB local engi- zerland implemented a feasibility study The second unit was delivered, installed
neering center (LEC) in Australia. Alto- and optimized the SES retrofit solution. and commissioned in October 2013. This
gether the customer ordered two UNI- order is the result of a good working rela-
TROL 6800 SESs for the retrofit of unit System configuration tionship together with the customer, close
1 and unit 3. There is a total of four UNI- The UNITROL 6800s have the follow- collaboration and mutual support between
TROLs with the SES of unit 2 and unit 4 ing features: ABB offices in Australia and Switzerland.
using UNITROL 5000. – – Totally segregated control channels ABB Australia was responsible for the elec-
While this is not the first steam turbine – – Redundant power supplies trical engineering, local project manage-
application for UNITROL 6800, every new – – Withdrawable converter bridge ment, installation, integration engineer-
reference is of major importance, as it rein- – – Customised enclosure and cooling ing, design report, commissioning and
forces the high level of trust that custom- system for the converter bridge compliance testing.
ers have towards ABB’s excitation solu- – – Detached automated voltage regula-
tions and local service. tor (AVR) Long-term partnership
Segregated control redundancy of the These major upgrades are an impor-
Lifetime extension measures control system and thyristor bridges means tant success story for ABB in Australia.
AGL Loy Yang power plant was origi- that maintenance can be carried out on a AGL Loy Yang is Australia’s largest elec-
nally constructed during the 1980s. With single channel or bridge at a time, with- tricity and gas retailer. With this impor-
2,100 megawatt (MW) capacity, AGL Loy out having to shutdown the entire system. tant milestone, it demonstrates, that AGL
Yang delivers more than 30 percent of all All systems have built-in power stabi- Loy Yang can rely on ABB and UNITROL
electricity produced in Victoria. The plant lizers, which ensures the stability of the for a long-term partnership.
operator, AGL Loy Yang, started introduc- grid. By following the stringent require-
ing life-time extension measures. Ret- ments of the Australia Energy Market Oper-
rofit of the excitation systems is part of ator (AEMO), Australia’s network regula-
these measures. The client selected ABB tor, AGL Loy Yang and ABB were able to
UNITROL® motor
excitation helps
crush coal at
thermal plant in
Vietnam
With a total installed capacity of
1,040 magawatt (MW), Pha Lai is
the largest coal-fired thermal power
plant in Vietnam, located 65 kilome-
ters (km) north-east of Hanoi. The
first stage, with four 110 MW shafts,
was installed in 1986.
A loss of power in a nuclear power plant As example, in one channel there are
is critical as many auxiliary process- thyristors, while in the other channel
es, especially the reactor cooling, will diodes and adjustable transformers with
no longer work. It is essential to have a automatic tab changer are used to pre-
backup source. These back-up sources vent inherent failures.
are typically redundant and housed in Part of the certification process is
a protected building such as a bunker to ensure that the excitation system is
to protect them against natural or man- robust enough to withstand earthquakes
made disasters. or any other natural or man-made disas-
As synchronous machines are typical- ter. Following simulation of these disas-
ly used for this application, an excitation ters to verify the design, the excitation
system is required. ABB delivers highly system is then subjected to a “real-life”
reliable excitation systems and carries simulation at vibration test laboratory.
out all the relevant certifications so that This system is mounted on a vibration
the systems comply, not only with inter- table and needs to survive different sce-
national rules, but local standards too. narios whilst running. The output current
An ABB excitation system not only fea- is continuously monitored to detect any
tures a redundant topology but a diverse small disturbance or fault.
set-up whereby all the main components ABB recently passed two such tests
- power supply, protection, software, for the nuclear power plants Leibstadt
semiconductors, etc - are replicated in (KKL) and Beznau (KKB), both located in
each channel. Switzerland.
Hydro power plant, Kappelerhof, Limmatkraftwerke AG, Baden Switzerland. UNITROL 1020 installed in Kappelerhof’s hydro power plant.
S
ince June 2011, the retrofit- plant was commissioned in August Since their introduction two years ago,
ted Kappelerhof hydro power 2013. Three main machines will be com- the UNITROL 1010 and UNITROL 1020
plant is providing electricity to missioned in April 2014. A total of 26 are successfully operating in numerous
the city of Baden, Switzerland. megawatt (MW) will be controlled by applications.
The utility, Limatkraftwerke AG, selected UNITROL 1020 AVRs.
UNITROL 1020 as an automatic voltage The customer is fully satisfied with The hydro power plant Kappelerhof is
regulator (AVR). Since commissioning, ABB’s product and services, as high- the first power plant equipped with BBC
the AVR is working continuously, without lighted by Mr. Rothenfluh from Limat- machines and was constructed around
disruption, thereby proving the reliabil- kraftwerke AG, who expressed his 1900. With the upgrade and installation
ity of the device. Following this success, confidence in the extensive know-how of UNITROL 1000 automatic voltages
Limatkraftwerke AG selected another and experience of ABB’s service engi- regulators, Kappelerhof has once again
UNITROL 1020 for its upcoming retro- neers. the newest generation of UNITROL
fit projects, including four machines. The customer is also impressed with voltage regulators installed after more
The first project is the bypass hydro ABB’s commissioning and maintenance than 100 years.
plant, Schiffmühle in Turgi, where the tool, the CMT 1000, which is available
commissioning was completed in Feb- free-of-charge as part of the project.
ruary 2013. The next retrofit project for Furthermore, ABB’s AVRs fulfill today’s
the hydro power plant Aue, in Baden is grid code requirements, thus providing
still ongoing. However, the bypass hydro a smooth implementation worldwide.
Fault-Ride Through
capability – A key
challenge in network
connection regulations
Text Valerijs Knazkins
T
he key purpose of a network a strong influence on the transient sta-
connection regulation - which bility of that machine; therefore, fulfilling
is sometimes referred to as a the FRT capability requirement is tightly
network code - is to provide related to the properties of the excita-
harmonized guidelines to the network tion system.
operators. This allows increased level of
security and effectiveness of the power The powerful hardware and exceptionally
grid operation.
flexible software, allow UNITROL exci-
Since the network code has to tation systems to comply with the most
encompass a broad variety of genera- demanding network requirements.
tion technologies and operating condi-
tions, the grid code requirements pose
several challenges to any specific gen- Since the FRT involves severe dis-
erator and its control systems. turbances to the power system and
One of the most challenging require- to the generator, the fulfillment of FRT
ments in existing network regulations is requirements must be verified in com-
the so-called Fault-Ride Through (FRT) puter-aided simulations rather than on
capability. This is a requirement for site. Therefore, in specific cases, ABB
a generator to maintain synchronous experts perform network code verifi-
operation when a severe disturbance cation simulations in order to ensure
occurs in electrical proximity of the gen- that UNITROL 6000 excitation systems
erator. This requirement plays an impor- are compliant with the most stringent
tant role in enhancing the overall power network regulations. Typically such
system transient stability. It helps the simulations are performed using a hard-
grid operator to prevent system-wide ware-in-the-loop (HIL) setup and a real-
disturbances such as, for example, cas- time simulator. This way, the simulations
cading failures and blackouts. do not need to rely on any simplifying
It is well-known that the excitation modeling assumptions, providing high
system of a synchronous machine has fidelity simulation results.
Figure 3 shows the positive impact of the power system stabilizer on the dynamic properties of the power system.
To illustrate the verification process, It is assumed that a fault occurred on Figure 3, above, shows the positive
let us consider the figure below. the high-voltage side of the unit trans- impact of the power system stabilizer
on the dynamic properties of the power
system.
It is worth mentioning that compli-
ance of an excitation system with a net-
work code, in most cases, can only be
verified by means of labor-intensive HIL
simulations.
Thanks to the powerful hardware and
exceptionally flexible software, UNI-
TROL excitation systems have always
The figure shows a HIL setup, which former, which resulted in the voltage been able to comply with the most
consists of (i) actual UNITROL hardware profile shown in the figure. demanding network requirements.
and software shown left and (ii) detailed Once the simulation work is com-
models of synchronous machine, its pleted, conclusions regarding the sta-
speed regulator, the unit transformer, bility properties of the power plant can
and the power grid, shown right. The be drawn. To highlight the process, let
set-up runs in real-time and simulates us analyze the results of a sample simu-
grid disturbances according to the net- lation. The HIL was configured for UNI-
work code of interest. TROL 6000 with a large turbo-generator
One such disturbance is depicted in and simulations were carried out.
the figure below.
The stator voltage and the active power
of the generator are presented in the
above figure. It is evident that the sim-
ulated power plant complies with the
FRT requirement, since the generator
preserves stability for the given distur-
bance.
Local engineer-
ing center (LEC)
in India
Text Nagaraja V
W
elcome to Nelemangala, mance and the technology behind ABBs
India! Nagaraja V, Manag- newest excitation system generation:
er of the local engineering “There are very demanding applications
center (LEC) for excitation and requirements and with the newest
systems in Bangalore, India, opens the generation of UNITROL we can meet
doors and guides us through the center them.” UNITROL’s leading market posi-
of excellence for excitation in India. tion has resulted in 10 excitation sys-
tems from another manufacturer being
Expertise and experience in a very replaced with UNITROL 6800. These
demanding environment; this describes systems have been operating for three
the daily business of the local engineer- 3 years and have, therefore, already
ing center (LEC) in India. But, of course, proved their reliability and performance.
Nagaraja V that’s not all. LEC India introduced UNI-
From mid-2013 Nagaraja V took over TROL 6000 immediately after its launch The benchmark is not only limited to
the excitation business responsibil- and has delivered 300 units of UNITROL the control, the first UNITROL system
ity within the local engineering center
6080 and 25 units of UNITROL 6800 to containing D6 converters was built at
(LEC) in India. Alongside India, the
LEC looks after Nepal, Bangladesh different customers in various applica- the LEC in India. Thanks to the coop-
and Sri Lanka with a strong pedi- tions. eration with the product responsible unit
gree in UNITROL. Nagaraja started in Turgi, Switzerland, it was possible to
his career in 1996 with small voltage
The experience from former UNI- build a system with this new converter
regulators and excitation systems for
small machines in Bangalore, India. TROL generations, an enthusiastic type and to commission it successfully
He took control of larger systems, team and excellent relations to OEMs, in 2013. There are also more technical
including ABB’s UNITROL, in 1996 turned LEC India into one of the most challenges, in industrial applications as
handling various portfolios like ser-
important producers of UNITROL 6080. well as in power plants. There is often
vice, engineering and sales. Nagaraja
V., the new business responsible for These units are not only installed in a requirement to deliver systems with
the Indian LEC, holds 17 years’ of India but also exported to other coun- series or vectorial compounding. “We
experience in excitation systems. tries. Nagaraja highlights the perfor- are combining these requirements with
News
Marketing and
communications
Switzerland. Claudia Bingen
started as Marketing and Com-
munications Manager for Excita-
tion Systems in December 2013.
Service agreements
Text Marc-Julian Herrmann, Natalie Delucca
Level 3
Level 2
STANDARD PACKAGE
–– Field service engineers are ready for dispatch in 24h, 48h or 72h*
–– Prioritization for on-site troubleshooting support – – Yearly performance review
–– Discount on daily rates – – Remote access
–– Discount on spare parts – – Training courses
–– Unlimited phone support without additional costs
Level 1
BASIC PACKAGE
–– Unlimited phone support without additional costs
–– Maintenance servicing is provided during 24 hours per day, – – Yearly performance review
365 days per year – – Remote access
–– Maximum call-back time of 60 minutes – – Training courses
–– Prioritization of phone support against customers without
Service contract
Service agreement packages and options for UNITROL®, MEGATROL and SYNCHROTACT®. * Travel restrictions to be considered
S
ervice agreements are a flex- Standard Package
ible and cost effective option
to realize the benefits of the
As well as the services offered with
the Basic Package, the Standard Pack-
Key facts
product or system which is a age gives priority to guaranteed on-site Products and systems covered
key component in the plant operation. troubleshooting. Our certified service MEGATROL
The service offerings for excitation engineers are ready to travel on-site for UNITROL® 6080/ 6800
UNITROL® 1010/ 1020
systems or synchronizing equipment are instant troubleshooting for any problem
SYNCHROTACT® 5
customized to acknowledge in-house that may occur to the excitation system. UNITROL® 5000
expertise. In addition they provide the Moreover a special price reduction on UNITROL® F
required capabilities for the correct daily rates and spare parts is provided.
Benefits
maintenance to ensure a smooth and
–– Unlimited 24/7 telephone support, 365 days
continuous operation. Premium Package a year
A service agreement contains differ- In order to help our customers to –– Guaranteed response time ensuring
ent packages that range from telephone meet demanding production sched- minimized down-time
–– Individual technical support
support and emergency field services to ules, we have developed the Premium
–– Guaranteed support through certified and
periodic maintenance activities. Certi- Package. In addition to the scope of ser- experienced engineers
fied service engineers support custom- vice included in the Standard Package, –– Customized service packages
ers with fast failure identification and we offer periodic on-site performance
troubleshooting. This results in a fast reviews. This includes a complete
response time and individual technical inspection of customer’s excitation sys-
support for a safe operation of the sys- tem. Furthermore additional discount
tem. rates for on-site activities and spare
ABB developed three levels of service parts are included.
agreements with additional options (see
details on page 12). All levels of service ABB Power Electronics Service - online
packages can be purchased on a yearly
basis or subscribed to for several years.
Contact ABB to learn more about the
service package options and how your
particular needs can be fulfilled.
Basic Package
This includes unlimited telephone
support via ABB engineers, 24 hours
a day, 365 days a year. Guaranteed
response time and priority call status
are also part of the Basic Package.
2014 course
program out now
A range of courses are available to help increase awareness,
skills and know-how about ABB’s excitation systems, services
and technologies.
10
ment, reduce down time and improve the shooting work and put the UNIREC in op-
skills and motivation of their personnel. eration.
Upcoming events
Upcoming Events
Powertage 2014
Exhibition and Conference
Zurich, Switzerland
3 -5 June, 2014
ABB is the world leading volume supplier of UNITROL automatic voltage regulators
(AVR) and static excitation systems (SES) - known to provide a high return on investment
year after year. UNITROL 6080 (AVR/SES) and UNITROL 6800 (SES) are designed for
any type and size of power plant and bring a new benchmark in flexibility, reliability
and connectivity. They are built to meet plant-related operational requirements, as well
as relevant industrial standards. Moreover, the flexible engineering concept ensures
smooth refurbishment solutions that perfectly suit given plant conditions. To find out
more, visit www.abb.com/unitrol