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El Paso Field Services |
This project consists of a Westinghouse W-101M frame gas turbine having a nominal rating of 10,000 hp under NEMA standard conditions and a Westinghouse EH-125 frame steam turbine having a nominal rating of 1,500 hp. These two turbines are tandem connected as a direct drive to a DeLaval multi-stage centrifugal compressor. This rotating machinery constitutes the compressor portion of a refrigerating system in which propane gas is used as the refrigerant. The refrigerant is used to cool natural gas such that lighter hydrocarbons are condensed and removed. Energy losses from the turbine are minimized by the utilization of a waste heat recovery boiler system.
The Turbine and boiler controls are pneumatic systems installed in 1959, with little or no upgrades since that time. The Compressor controls had been upgraded in 1997, but have never been successfully used as a fully automatic control system. GATE,LLC has been commissioned to design and implement a turbine, compressor, and boiler control system. The Turbine and compressor controls are integrated in a single PLC based control platform. The boiler safety system uses a separate PLC based controller. Both systems are networked via Ethernet to a single operator interface panel for local machine operation. The local PLC controls are remotely controlled and monitored by the plant wide DCS system.
