HMI upgrade success for Invensys Eurotherm at UK nuclear power plant

HMI upgrade success for Invensys Eurotherm at UK nuclear power plant

Invensys Eurotherm has successfully upgraded an obsolete DEC VAX based Human Machine Interface (HMI) platform at Oldbury Power Station, part of the British Nuclear Group.

The Remote Emergency Indication Centre (REIC) project had two main objectives: the replacement of an obsolete DEC VAX computer system with the EurothermSuite HMI, and the retention of the plant’s many Solartron Isolated Measurement Pods (IMPs).

Solartron IMP modules are in use in many conventional and nuclear power stations throughout the UK. They are popular because they eliminate one of the most significant SCADA implementation costs: signal cabling from the sensor to the measurement system. They are also are environmentally hardened.

This project marks the first time that an IMP-based installation has had its life extended using Eurotherm HMI technology.

In terms of the overall REIC upgrade, the Eurotherm HMI communicates to the existing 3591C Solartron IMP modules via the existing S-Net system. No modifications were made either to the Solartron IMP modules or Input channels, or the existing S_NET network.

The project consists of installations within three distributed plants areas, the REIC, the Emergency Control Room (ECR) and the Main Control Room (MCR).

Within the REIC building, the new system includes two EurothermSuite Operation Servers running Wonderware InTouch software, plus two printers. The EurothermSuite system communicates to the original Solartron IMP modules using a Eurotherm software driver compatible with S-NET protocol.

One EurothermSuite Client Workstation, plus printer and communication module, is located in the remote ECR. The TFT screen is mounted on the existing desk, saving space over the previous equipment. Two additional EurothermSuite Clients, together with independent communication modules, are mounted in the remote MCR. Their TFT screens are mounted into the existing control desks.

Each client PC is nominally associated with a specific reactor, and displays only those alarms and displays associated with it. However, each client will display alarms and displays for both reactors at the press of a button on screen. This feature allows either client PC in the MCR to provide information on both reactors, should any element of one of the communications link between the REIC and the MCR fail.

These remote system Workstations communicate over existing twisted pair cores via Ethernet. This was achieved using Remote Mini Bridge module pairs, which avoided the high cost of running new communication cables. The system includes Watchdog Timer software to provide an alarm in the event communications to either of the PC Servers is lost. The Watchdog timer initiates alarms contact to the Station Alarm Analyser to reflect this status.

All the new EurothermSuite Servers and associated hardware are powered by existing UPS systems.

The Server PC Workstations and Client PC Workstations provide the visualisation of plant data via EurothermSuite Operations Server software. Based on Wonderware InTouch SCADA software the presentation of real time data via tabular and process mimic displays is intuitive and provides Oldbury Engineers and Operators a modern HMI. Historical data is also collected by the system, and is used to provide report displays and logs are produced from Excel Workbooks.

The REIC project was won as a competitive tender against the original system provider.

To date, engineers at Oldbury are delighted with their new cost effective modern system, which is an addition to other similar systems already supplied to the