Emerson launches new plant monitoring and control system

Emerson Network Power has launched the ASCO PowerQuest Power Monitoring and Control System that helps facility managers enhance power reliability, availability and efficiency, and creates the next paradigm for on-site power management.

ASCO PowerQuest’s combination of integrated communications, sensing and measurement, advanced control, improved interfaces and decision support technologies creates a new, more efficient model for managing emergency power assets—the Critical Power Management System (CPMS). A Critical Power Management System includes gensets, circuit breakers, transfer switches, bus bar, paralleling control switchgear and other emergency power system equipment. It differs from SCADA (1) and EPMS (2) in that it also encompasses technical service and support, which are essential to on-site power reliability, availability and efficiency.

As part of a communications solution, ASCO PowerQuest can monitor and control power transfer switches, paralleling control switch­gear, gensets, breakers and other equipment. It facilitates on-site power system testing, load man­agement and bus bar optimization. It also monitors normal and emergency voltages and frequency, indicates transfer switch position, source availability, normal and emergency voltage and frequency, current, power and power factor, and displays transfer switch event logs, time-delay settings, rating and identification. ASCO PowerQuest also sends automatic alerts on system operation via e-mail, pager, or selected system alarms.

The power monitoring and control system automatically generates reports on tests and other aspects of emergency power that are designed to ensure on-site power is readily available when utility source outages occur. Also, customers can use existing monitoring components within the ASCO PowerQuest system.

Other benefits ASCO PowerQuest provides are interoperability, flexibility, scalability and centralization. Interoperability allows all components to reliably work together. Flexibility facilitates configuring a power monitoring and control system for virtually any on-site power system. Scalability ensures system capacity can grow with future expansion and upgrades. Centralization provides the ability to manage and control access, resources and data security.

ASCO PowerQuest comprises a family of power monitoring and control platforms that can be tailored to virtually any on-site power system. It provides ultimate customization, redundancy and scalability for large-scale power switching and controls requirements, and includes an on-site training simulator. Another platform comprises three levels of monitoring and control sophistication. Three levels allow highly flexible configurations for virtually any on-site power system. The last platform provides basic monitoring capabilities for smaller on-site power systems.

ASCO PowerQuest operates with Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) 128, the same advanced encryption standard used by the National Security Agency to protect top secret information. It is the only on-site power monitoring and control system operating with AES 128.

System hardware encompasses ASCO 5150 Connectivity Modules, 5220 Power Managers, 5310 and 5350 Annunciators, 5710, 5750 and 5790 Display Terminals, 5900 Custom Terminal Servers and 5990 Training Simulators. PowerQuest also includes HMI software, instal­lation, testing, service, and upgrades and technol­ogy refreshes. It can operate with multiple communications modalities: Ethernet, Modbus, or fiber optic cable.