Integrated plant automation, control and monitoring systems: a new heart for an old station

Technological advances have enabled the control and monitoring processes required at power stations to be fully integrated. This integration permits productivity improvements to be gained through more efficient management of the overall production process. This paper discusses the retrofitting of fully integrated control and monitoring systems at Swanbank, the Queensland Electricity Commission´s oldest operating thermal power station situated in the heart of the main load centre of South East Queensland. Swanbank power station has 6×68 MW and 4×125 MW turbogenerator units, all of which have been recommissioned with the new control systems and are now fully operational