Taiwan Power Company selects Invensys for Takuan Hydro Power Station digital controls upgrade

Taiwan Power Company selects Invensys for Takuan Hydro Power Station digital controls upgrade

New I/A Series systems and high-speed mesh network to control eight units of hydro generation and pumped storage in central Taiwan


Invensys Process Systems today announced that Taiwan Power Company (Taipower) will implement I/A Series distributed control systems (DCS) from Foxboro (www.foxboro.com) for a hydro power generation and pumped storage automation upgrade project. Located at the 1,088-megawatt Takuan Hydro Power Station in Nantau County in central Taiwan, the new implementation will utilize the Foxboro high-speed mesh control network backbone to maximize system availability and reliability. Invensys Taiwan will also provide a range of professional services.

The new systems at Takuan will control Plant 1, comprising four 22-megawatt hydro-electric generation units, and Plant 2, which consists of four 250-megawatt hydro-electric pumping units. The plants utilize water stored in Sun-Moon Lake, Taiwan’s largest natural lake. The new automation system’s unique capabilities, in conjunction with the physical nature of the units, will allow it to provide frequency stabilization during daytime generation and optimization for off-peak pumped storage, addressing a critical problem for the island’s isolated grid. During the day, the plants provide power for local industry and the regional electric grid. At night, surplus generation capacity is used to pump water above the dam and back into Sun-Moon Lake, where it is stored for the next day’s generation.

The new systems, connecting more than 10,000 I/O points with a new central control room, will drive several critical applications: automatic generation control; hydro-electric generation; hydro-electric dispatch; pumping/generation sequence and optimization, and events history. The latter utilizes I/A Series TDR/TDA (transient data recording/transient data analysis) capabilities, the industry’s most comprehensive historical resolution of critical process parameters. Together, these applications allow Taipower to determine exactly when to generate and when to store electricity, while using Takuan’s plant assets most economically.

Invensys Taiwan will work closely with Taipower’s engineering, technical and operating personnel, providing a variety of professional services, including project management, engineering services, site installation, commissioning, startup assistance and training programs.

Invensys, a qualified Taipower supplier, is the leading supplier of automation to Taipower. The Invensys installed base within Taipower comprises Foxboro automation and instrumentation, Triconex safety instrumented systems, SimSci-Esscor simulation and advanced control, all facilitated by numerous categories of professional services. Invensys systems are installed in dozens of generation units at more than a dozen Taipower fossil, hydro and nuclear power plants.


About Taiwan Power Company

Formally established in 1946, Taiwan Power Company (Taipower), headquartered in Taipei, is entrusted with the development, generation, transmission, distribution, and sale of electric power in Taiwan. With a generating capacity of more than 33,000 MW, the state-owned utility serves nearly 11.1 million industrial, commercial, and residential customers. Taipower owns more than 70 power plants driven by various power resources ranging from hydro, thermal and nuclear power, to wind energy and natural gas. The company makes active efforts to diversify power resources in order to offer a stable and economic supply of electricity. More information can be found at www.taipower.com.tw.