| CHP and digitalisation
DTE’s CHP plant for Ford drives automation to the next level
The DTE Energy combined heat and power plant at Ford Motor Company’s Dearborn research and engineering campus requires minimal supervision with only one person present for operations and maintenance most of the time
Drew Robb
DTE Energy’s Dearborn Central Energy Plant (CEP) generates electricity and distributes chilled water, hot water and steam to buildings at the Ford Dearborn Research and Engineering Campus (REC). The CEP consists of a combined heat and power (CHP) plant and a chilled/hot water plant for combined power and steam generation. A wide array of technology is deployed to make it possible for the entire CHP plant to be largely manned by one person per shift to take care of maintenance and operations.
“A single person looks after the entire 34 MW, 87 000 square foot facility 76% of the time,” said Kevin Siess, Regional Operations Manager at DTE Energy. “Our plant operators are also our maintenance staff who can monitor the plant and its control systems while they are doing their rounds.”
Integrated systems
The CEP opened on the first day of 2020. Although its design included plenty of systems to streamline plant operations, COVID-19-inspired lockdowns provided the impetus to further innovate in plant monitoring. What has been assembled is a fully integrated array of software and controls solutions:
Vital Technology Services (VTS) HardHAT system provides the plant’s digital twin, front-end of 3D modelling, inventory and computerised maintenance monitoring systems (CMMS). MapEx Software provides first-principle physics-based modeling and heat balance that feeds into advanced pattern recognition (APR) software and machine learning-based analytics. SureSense APR (advanced pattern recognition) software by Expert Microsystems. Solar turbine’s Turbotronic control system for sequencing, control, and protection of the gas turbine package, and monitoring of associated auxiliary systems.
A Rockwell Automation historian and Allen Bradley PlantPAx distributed control system (DCS) to control the entire CEP.
“Around 12 000 datapoints are gathered up in one place from the various control and software systems and all of it goes into the historian,” said Siess. “That data is all available in VTS. We get trip alerts automatically on high-value critical equipment such as the gas turbines,
heat recovery steam generators (HRSGs) and feedwater pumps.”
A lightweight 3D model is viewable by plant personnel on remote devices during maintenance rounds. Smart tags on components and equipment show up in the 3D model to provide abundant digital data. The system offers a single source of truth for document control, DCS, historian, CMMS, plant instrumentation (PI) system, inventory software, and more. In addition, drones are used to supplement maintenance checks. They incorporate image recognition technology that can detect hot spots and puddles as well as methane, steam or other leaks. “Drones are a lot more efficient than putting hardwired AI/IOT sensors everywhere,” said Siess. Mathematical algorithms identify patterns in historic data. These patterns are trained into the system to detect changes in on-going plant operating data that arise from a developing problem.
Turbine monitoring
The combined cycle facility includes two 14.5 MW Solar Titan 130 gas turbines and a 5 MW condensing steam turbine from Siemens Energy. As Ford does all its engine testing at a nearby dynamometer lab, there is almost no tolerance for electricity interruption.
Siess gave an example of how the CHP monitoring systems help prevent unscheduled outages. After a recent scheduled outage, SureSense generated an alert about a slight increase in oil temperature exiting shaft bearings. The seal had registered a temperature of 219°F since plant opening. Soon after the outage, it rose by 10°F. While still 40°F below the alarm level, the software flagged the condition as abnormal. The operator alerted Solar Turbines, which is monitoring the seal and plan to replace it during the next scheduled outage unless the problem worsens.
“A sudden shift in oil temperature can lead to more varnish potential and make the unit and ancillary cooling equipment work harder,” said Siess. “It is vital that we catch issues at an early stage to prevent a major failure.”
Another example concerned a problematic gas compressor. Drilling into data within the HardHat system, the operators discovered a slide
Above: Dearborn Central Energy Plant, outside and inside
gate out of calibration that caused unnecessary recirculation of gas. This increased parasitic load and system wear. It was repaired before serious problems arose.
Similarly, APR detected a thermocouple deviation in the gas turbine exhaust that hadn’t yet showed up in the turbine control system. A shutdown was ordered to rapidly clear the fuel injectors. As a result, a GT trip or outage was avoided.
Preventive maintenance (PM) is preferred to calendar-based maintenance schedules that can result in over-greasing of parts or unnecessary replacement of components.
www.modernpowersystems.com | October 2023 | 17
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