Honeywell makes power migration a safe bet

With global electricity consumption forecast to double over the coming decades, power executives must implement new strategies ensuring the reliability and availability of the bulk power system.
According to a Brattle Group study released in April 2008 by the Edison Foundation, power companies will need to spend about $1.4 trillion over the next 22 years ($457 billion in generating capacity alone) to meet power demand and modernise the transmission and distribution grid.
Power companies must find ways to improve process efficiency and extend asset life. In power generation facilities, utilities are forced to run their plants for longer periods of time. As such, the new priorities of the industry include:

Ensuring flexible, reliable operation with minimum forced outages

Implementing innovative strategies that reduce emissions

Dealing with volatile power markets while achieving the lowest operating costs possible

Challenges
In the process automation market alone, the ARC Advisory Group (Dedham, Mass) estimates there is $65 billion worth of control systems nearing the end of their useful life.
Honeywell believes an outdated infrastructure of field equipment, control systems and work practices have resulted in severe consequences not only for the power industry but for the public as well.
Despite financial constraints, it is important that utilities view plant modernisation as investment protection. Honeywell has observed that failure to invest in an existing automation platform can hasten premature obsolescence, leaving a large capital project as the only alternative. Updating equipment also enables plants to realise incremental value by providing the infrastructure for new solutions such as fire & safety, MES, ERP and wireless applications.

Migration strategy
The need to upgrade to newer automation capabilities means that plant management must select the best migration strategy and technology solutions based on various critical factors:

Control reliability

Data configurability

Network architecture support

Plant standardisation and safety-instrumented systems (SIS) integration
No single migration approach is appropriate for all operations. Typical options include:
• Phased migration - Allows system modernisation in gradual steps, replacing the Human-Machine Interface (HMI) or a particular unit first. Once this is completed, the end-user can take advantage of solutions, improving operations and safety.
• Complete replacement - Allows the entire system to be replaced all at once during a planned outage. In some cases, hot cutover can be used to minimise system downtime and ensure seamless integration of current control assets.
• System upgrade - Allows an upgrade of critical system components at the end-user's own pace. For example, new controllers can be added at any time and integrated with existing controllers. This approach also permits migration of subsystems and function blocks whenever the user decides to do so.
Some automation equipment suppliers such as Honeywell Process Solutions offer solution enhancements and support programs maximising the results from investments in process control and information technology.
These programs enable migrations to be performed over a 3-5 year period under the plant maintenance budget. All existing I/O and field wiring are kept intact for as long as possible, further reducing costs.
To ensure a successful technology migration, end-users should plan for the change, identify a critical timeline, conduct regular meetings, engage those who will be affected by the change, identify all available resources and plan for contingency resources or vendor staff if needed.
A formal migration plan identifies migration and support strategies for existing control system nodes such as controllers, HMIs, supervisory computing nodes etc. Leading control system suppliers such as Honeywell employ knowledgeable migration experts who can help leverage investments in critical legacy components and maximise the retention of intellectual property.

Technology solutions
In an increasingly demanding business environment, utility operations are seeking an easy, low-risk transition path to a modern control system. With an effective migration solution, they can take advantage of existing automation investments while building a base for the latest digital technologies.
By upgrading to a Honeywell Experion process knowledge system (PKS), power facilities can achieve improved operations, increased incident avoidance, better decision-making, and enhanced workflows.
In addition, this solution incorporates physical security, emergency shutdown and fail-safe controls.
The rationale behind the Honeywell Experion approach is that it integrates data from different plant systems and facilitates sharing knowledge, allowing a smaller, highly skilled workforce to make quicker, more informed decisions.
It also centralises control room strategies and provides an integrated operator interface helping plant workers to be more flexible. By integrating new and legacy systems within the Honeywell Experion architecture, controller data has the same look and feel.
Merging multiple platforms into a single operator interface improves operator effectiveness and reduces training requirements. Moreover, they can access a single virtual database without duplicating configuration.
Thanks to the Honeywell Experion's integrated control infrastructure, alarms and events are detected automatically and operators have system-wide acknowledgement. Secure control access can be achieved using OLE for Process Control (OPC), with vendor-specific extensions.
A truly unified system solution like the Experion allows peer-to-peer communication between legacy systems and the application control environment. It also provides a common security model, as well as fault-tolerant communications with full redundancy.