The Midland Cogeneration Venture in Midland, Mich, used a migration process developed by Emerson Process Management Power & Water Solutions to migrate the process control system in its 1,500 megawatt power generation plant in record time. Emerson’s proven process streamlines the migration process, helping plants to avoid the lengthy outages usually necessary for a technology migration of this kind.

As the source of 11 percent of the power used in Michigan’s Lower Peninsula, the Midland Cogeneration Venture in Midland, Mich., at one time the world’s largest natural gas-fired power plant, cannot afford to be offline for long. Thorough planning and execution coordinated by Emerson Process Management Power & Water Solutions enabled Midland to migrate its proprietary process control system to a new open architecture platform in five days.

With help from Emerson engineers, Midland began updating the process control system in its 1,500-megawatt plant from WDPF technology to the Ovation Expert Control System, a state-of-the-art system that utilizes commercially available (non proprietary) off-the-shelf hardware, communications and software. Midland’s upgrade outage began on a Saturday, and by Monday, only two days later, the plant was generating power again. By Tuesday, it was up at full power, supplying up to 11 percent of the power used by Michigan’s Lower Peninsula.

Migration With Minimal Re-engineering
Emerson’s approach to the migration process allows users of Emerson’s WDPF technology to migrate to Ovation with minimal re-engineering. This migration process reduces the amount of time needed to convert WDPF logic, graphics and the database to Ovation’s advanced open architecture, helping plants to avoid the lengthy outages usually necessary for a technology migration of this kind.

Furthermore, in addition to retaining a significant amount of their existing system engineering investment, customers are able to experience additional cost efficiencies by utilizing existing I/O, field cabling and terminations, while having the option of later moving to the Ovation I/O. WDPF cabinets also stay in place and are updated with an Ovation Controller Fieldkit – based on a standard industrial PC configured to provide reliability, fault-tolerance and full redundancy.

Migration to the Ovation system provides enhanced system functionality and process efficiency while reducing risks related to component obsolescence. At Midland, Emerson replaced 27 controllers from the plant’s WDPF system. Emerson also replaced six existing data link servers and 11 operator workstations. When the WDPF-to-Ovation migration was completed, Midland had a fully functional Ovation system – not an interim or hybrid system.

The initial focus was on the removal of the WDPF controllers and the installation of the new Ovation controllers. All 27 Ovation controllers, 11 workstations and 6 data-link servers were installed, loaded and operational by Sunday afternoon.

Thorough Planning and Execution are Key
Up-front planning was crucial to the successful migration. Emerson worked closely with the Midland operations group to support the plant restart plan. The following outline illustrates the phases of the Midland migration:

Phase 1 - Review existing logic and graphic code and document custom applications.
Review operational philosophies with Midland Cogeneration to ensure that all parties agreed on the approach to hardware/software replacement and re-deployment.

Phase 2 - Verify hardware configuration and operational philosophies.

Phase 3 - Migrate existing logic, database and tuning parameters.
This was an interactive process in which the customer sent the existing logic to Emerson for initial translation. The migration approach used by Emerson engineers flagged potential issues within the existing code. Emerson then sent suggestions to Midland for implementation on the existing system, to ensure the existing code was ready for migration.

Phase 4 - Develop plan for onsite migration.
The Midland plan was dynamic, due to a shortened project schedule. Initial discussion centered on migration of all 27 controllers. The outage schedule was shortened from 5 days to less than 2 days and contingency plans were developed.

Phase 5 - Factory testing.
Scott Woodby, senior staff engineer for Midland, visited Emerson’s Pittsburgh headquarters to review and test the converted logic and graphics on the actual field kits that would be installed. Following the factory test, the focus for installation became a complete migration of all 27 controllers, all logic, and all graphics during the short outage. Issues discovered during the factory testing were either corrected immediately or integrated while the system was in transit.

Phase 6 - On-site installation.
Emerson assembled a team of experts whose experience included hardware installation, control logic, graphics, database and other disciplines. The team was sent to Midland to execute the migration plan.

The initial focus was on the removal of the WDPF controllers and the installation of the new Ovation controllers. Teams of two to three people were assigned to specific areas of the plant to complete the hardware installation as quickly and accurately as possible. Once the initial controllers were installed, some of the installation teams were re-deployed to begin loading and inspecting the new equipment. All 27 Ovation controllers, 11 workstations and 6 data-link servers were installed, loaded and operational by Sunday afternoon.