Experience with an integrated control and monitoring system at the El Segundo generating station

This paper describes the EPRI/Southern California Edison (SCE) El Segundo Integrated Control and Monitoring System (ICMS) project and relates key project experiences. The ICMS project is a cost-shared effort between EPRI and SCE designed to address the issues involved with integrating power plant diagnostic and condition monitoring with control. A digital distributed control system retrofit for SCE's El Segundo Units 3 and 4 provided the case study. although many utilities have retrofitted power plant units with distributed control systems (DCS's) and have applied diagnostics and monitoring programs to improve operations and performance, the approach taken in this project, that is, integrating the monitoring function with the control function, is profoundly new and unique. Over the life of the El Segundo ICMS, SCE expects to realize savings form life optimization, increased operating flexibility, improved heat rate, reduced NO{sub x} emissions, and lower maintenance costs. These savings are expected to be significant over the life of the system.