In an upgrade, Turkish power plant switches from Alstom controls to GE

GE has completed an ALSPA steam turbine controls migration to its state-of-the-art Mark VIe controls system with rotor stress controller upgrade at ENGIE Group’s Baymina power plant in Turkey. This first-of-its-kind Migration Pack upgrade features replacement of the controls technology while keeping the system’s core hardware infrastructure intact. This modernization is expected to increase flexibility, reliability and availability of the steam turbine and help Engie make smarter operational decisions based on controls data analytics.

This project is the first upgrade from ALSPA P320 V1 controls—a technology originally developed by Alstom—to GE’s Mark VIe system. The cost-effective solution, which includes engineering, commissioning and training, retains the control system footprint, the applicative process program and the input-output modules and associated wiring work on-site, and it offers a shorter outage time and less power generation loss.

In addition, a new steam turbine stress calculator, Turbomax, was implemented to help ensure accelerated startup time while improving reliability and availability. Turbomax controls the trade-off between starting time and rotor life. It provides an increased accuracy of the stress calculation, which ensures efficient operation.

“Successes like this project are crucial to our customers because the nerve center of their operations, our controls technologies, are integrated throughout the plant footprint,” said Olivier Jamart, GE’s Power Automation & Controls General Manager. “Developed in three years, our Migration Pack not only delivers the latest Mark VIe technology, but also helps plant operators—like Baymina—benefit from cost savings, allowing for up to 30% reduction in outage time when compared to a full scope replacement of the existing controls system and lower system disruption risk. This solution features the latest cybersecurity solutions as well as better operator decision-making and troubleshooting based on controls data to help increase reliability and availability of the plant asset.”

Cybersecurity can be further strengthened thanks to GE’s Baseline Security Center, an integrated set of tools, configurations and services focused on reduction of cyber risk. The Migration Pack Baseline Security Center solution includes functions such as next-generation anti-malware, certificate authority, domain controller, patch management, configuration comparison, host intrusion detection, identity management and access control, system hardening, system backup and recovery, log aggregation and security incident and event management, and network infrastructure management.

Engie’s 770-megawatt, gas-fired Baymina plant is located in Ankara and generates electricity for the capital, which has 1.6 million households. The combined-cycle power plant began operation in December 2003 with two of GE’s 9FA.03 gas turbines (235 megawatts each) and an Alstom DKY224-4N4/B steam turbine (325 megawatts).