Balance of Plant

Balance of Plant

Balance of plant (BOP) applications typically include discrete device (motor/pump/fan) control, ash handling, air quality control, demineralizer control, pulverizer inerting, and coal handling applications. Fossil will engineer, design, and manufacture custom control solutions for any steam/electric generating application or other industrial applications.

Sootblower Control

Sootblowers are devices used to clean the heat transfer surfaces of a boiler. FPS designs and manufactures PLC based sootblower systems to sequence the starting and stopping of sootblowers. Our systems offer extensive on-line monitoring and maintenance abilities through the use of a Windows-based graphical operator interface.

Since each sootblower project is considered on its own merits, a team of dedicated design engineers familiar with the development of Sootblower systems will evaluate the design and construction of your boiler to determine the most efficient system design for your application.

Data Acquisition System (DAS)

A typical DAS comprises the following systems - alarming, logging, point categorization and display. All systems are visually configurable and have unlimited archival data storage. Data points are categorized into three groups - Critical, Warning and State - and switching data points to an alternative group is easily executed via the CRT operator interface.

Selecting data points for the periodic Alarm log is an operator function via the operator interface. Up to twelve different alarm logs can be created and the reporting period is operator selectable. Alarm points are date/time stamped when coming into and going out of alarm state. Trending and timed snapshot reports of a large number of process points are also available.

FPS will engineer, design, and manufacture a DAS to accommodate large point counts involved in monitoring critical process data found in large industrial applications. Additionally, Control System packages supplied by Fossil can be engineered to interface to existing DAS systems to create a complete control, monitoring and data management package.

Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA)

Applications requiring centralized SCADA capability, as well as trending, logging etc., have need of a system similar to the basic DAS system. SCADA systems are used to monitor and control plant or equipment via a system consisting of a central host (or master), one or more field data gathering and control units (or remotes), and a collection of standard and/or custom software which is used to monitor and control remotely located field data elements.

The control may be automatic or initiated by operator commands. Data for the system is gathered over data highways from other systems such as the BMS, or from Remote Terminal Units (RTU’s) such as PLC or DCS I/O modules.

SCADA systems located in a confined area usually communicate via a local area network (LAN), which is normally reliable and exhibits high speed data transfer rates. Generally, SCADA systems cover larger geographic areas, and rely on a variety of communications systems that are normally less reliable than a LAN.

The master will scan the RTU's and the data is processed to detect a change in field status. Data can be one of three main types, analog, digital (on/off), or pulse (eg: counting revolutions of a meter) which are normally accumulated or counted. SCADA systems exhibit predominantly open-loop control characteristics although some elements of closed-loop control may also be present.

The SCADA systems designed by FPS are "Event-Driven" meaning that no changes occur in the master until a change occurs in the field. The remote RTU's are polled for changed values, which will be used to update the real-time database. The database update will trigger alarm evaluations, display updates, and other events.

Software for FPS designed SCADA systems runs under Microsoft Windows NT/2000, which comes equipped with an extensive library of custom tools, objects and live data base connectivity. Every system can be easily configured and maintained by plant personnel upon receiving the FPS training program.

FPS will engineer, design, and manufacture a SCADA system to monitor critical processes found in large and small industrial applications. Additionally, SCADA systems can be engineered to interface with existing DAS, BMS, or DCS systems to create a complete control, monitoring and data management package.