The Performance Optimization Centre (POC) of Luminant, based in Dallas, Texas is a fleet level diagnostic and performance support facility committed to assisting plant personnel in achieving and maintaining the highest possible levels of equipment reliability, plant efficiency and power generation.

To do this, the POC engage in continuous remote monitoring of the rotating assets installed at their dispersed power plants, to keep a check on the performance, efficiency and health of the various machines.

Using numerous VM600 on-line vibration monitoring systems – all designed, supplied and supported by Zeefax, Luminant is able to identify, forecast and advise plant personnel of emergent issues well before those issues become a serious impediment to operation.

In a fleet wide adoption of the VM600 system, Luminant has installed systems at every major plant and on every large unit. These systems are maintained and supported by Zeefax using both periodic site visits and off-site remote login over the internet, to assist with software configuration, machine diagnostics and system maintenance items on a daily basis.

Key to the continued success of the relationship between Zeefax and Luminant is the very high level of support provided by Zeefax on all aspects of the use and operation of the VM600 systems, as well as the on-going help given on machinery diagnostic and operational issues.

• Luminant has invested and standardised on the VM600, internet enabled, condition and supervisory monitoring equipment.
• Luminant has consolidated machinery and vibration diagnostics expertise in a centre of excellence, called Performance Optimization Centre, POC, based in Dallas.
• Luminant POC now use the internet to perform daily monitoring and examination of the performance and condition of the installed assets.
• By a process of sharing operational knowledge throughout the fleet, Luminant has been able to reduce the incidence of unplanned outages, by catching impending faults early, thereby reducing or eliminating unwanted loss of production.
• Luminant POC is working closely with Zeefax to provide the plant operation groups with timely and relevant guidance for performance optimisation, fault diagnosis and failure prevention.

The Beaver Valley nuclear plant of First Energy, is located just north of Pittsburg, PA, and has two large steam units;  Unit 1 is 970 MW and Unit 2 is 920 MW.

Zeefax designed, supplied, commissioned and support a replacement supervisory and condition monitoring system for Unit #1, based on the VM600 system from Vibro-Meter. The new system replaced the existing obsolete BN3300 system, which was monitoring the Main Turbine and the Reactor Cooling Pumps.

The new seismically rated free standing equipment cabinet was designed to fit directly into the limited space made available following removal of the existing equipment. Zeefax designed the new wiring scheme, provided a comprehensive set of installation drawings, and supervised the installation on site.

The new combined Protection and Condition Monitoring system includes absolute vibration monitoring, by vectorially combining relative and seismic vibration sensors, and also an all new phase monitoring module, which extracts the 1st order phase information for each bearing from the VM600 system and presents it to the unit operators on the customized touch screen display, for inclusion in the daily reports. This new VM600 system was intended as a direct replacement for the old existing system, whilst taking advantage of all new digital technology.

Zeefax provided all of the engineering design, integration, testing and installation supervision for this system.

This is a 3 unit pump/storage hydro turbine power plant, located in Warren, Northern Pennsylvania. The plant has two main units rated at 225 MW each, and a smaller black start unit rated at 35 MW.

Zeefax designed, tested and supervised the installation for this VM600 based replacement protection and condition monitoring system.

The scope of supply included supplying new thrust probes for the two large units, and a full set of probes for the unmonitored unit 3, as well as the supply of the Air Gap sensors from Vibro-Meter for all units.

Due to a lack of up to date information, it was necessary to reverse engineer some of the mechanical items, including the probe holders for Unit 3.

The two large units can operate in either generating or pumping mode, and the new system included an innovative automatic key phase switching device which effectively separates the two operating modes in the database, making analysis and diagnostics much simpler for the First Energy machinery engineers.

Zeefax provided all of the engineering design, integration, testing and installation supervision for this system.

Click here to download the SENECA Project Review paper

The sensors fitted to the main turbine bearings included an innovative re-design of the existing shaft rider carriers, which enabled them to be re-used to mount the new proximity probes. This unique design minimised the amount of re-machining required on the bearing cases during the outages, and meant that the new probes could be fitted into the bearings without having to do any disassembly work.

The new installations included separate VM600 systems – providing both protection and condition monitoring capabilities – one for each main turbine unit, with the equipment racks housed in free standing cabinets located on the turbine deck. Each cabinet is fitted with air conditioning units to ensure correct operating temperature for the VM600 systems.

An important feature of the VM600 system is the dual redundant network capability, which was used to separate the machine protection segment of the new systems from the condition monitoring segment.

Each system includes a main control room panel mounted video graphic display, featuringPowerPAC™ software and with touch screen capability, providing a series of detailed turbine and feed pump mimics, and a condition monitoring and analysis workstation, located on separate network segments.

Zeefax provided all of the engineering design, integration, testing and installation supervision for these two separate systems.