How Wireless Monitoring Technology Optimizes Power Plant Operations
New advances in wireless monitoring technology can help improve utilities’ emergency preparedness by improving reliability, because as you know, the greater the reliability, the lower the expected outage frequency.
Unfortunately, in the power sector at least, most power plants are not monitored automatically or continuously enough to ensure maximum reliability. This is because this type of automation has historically required the deployment of wired instrumentation, which tends to be expensive and cumbersome to install, and therefore most utilities have instead chosen to rely on old-fashioned manual approaches.
Why Wireless Monitoring Technology Makes Sense
Regulations that have been issued over the last 30 years require that power plants regularly monitor certain elements of their operations. For example, natural gas plants are required to monitor flue gases, and doing so in an automated fashion has historically required the installation of a hard-wired continuous emissions monitoring system (CEMS) on each emissions stack.
Keeping with the flue gas example, most gas companies have chosen to monitor these emissions manually, which takes several hours each day, and is often delayed due to things like bad weather and other priorities. The result is wasted manhours, outdated logs, and incomplete information, the latter of which could actually trigger a calibration failure and subsequent outage.
The traditional alternative to manual monitoring would be to hard-wire pressure gauges on each stack. However, adding the wiring and control system integration points to enable this type of solution is extremely expensive.
Wireless monitoring technology, on the other hand, generally costs 50% less than wired solutions, and can shave 75% off installation times. And this solution is exactly what Florida Power & Light deployed in its 3,800-MW gas plant in Loxahatchee. The company installed 36 wireless pressure gauges on the plant’s 9 stacks. Read this detailed case study to learn more about this FP&L initiative.
The real-time nature of the wireless monitoring technology means that FP&L can collect information continuously – even during emergency situations – which mitigates the risk of incurring a fine from the EPA for prolonged gaps in recordkeeping. It also boosts safety by reducing the time that workers are in the field. And from a cost perspective, FP&L is saving an estimated $44k in labor costs every year. The company has since expanded into wireless valve monitoring and other wireless solutions.
In the final analysis, better reliability equals reduced outages, and therefore broadening the deployment of wireless monitoring technology can only help utility emergency preparedness.
