ABB’s strategy for your future – Symphony Plus

Total plant automation for the power generation and water industries.

Plant owners make significant capital investment in the system hardware, engineering tools and application software that together com- prise their initial distributed control system (DCS) installation. Upon commissioning, plant and corporate personnel add to the investment by enhancing control system components, tuning and refining control application code and developing knowledgeable staff who operate and maintain the plant and control system.

The result of these investments are a highly trained and experienced staff of engineers, technician and operators, as well as the creation of site specific control strategies, procedures and graphics that enable the plant to maintain high unit availability and excellent operational performance.

ABB’s evolution strategy aims at supporting the customers who wish to protect and enhance their investments in both the control system hardware and the valuable intellectual property.

SymphonyTM Plus represents the new generation of ABB’s hugely successful Symphony family of distributed control systems (DCS) – the most widely used DCS in the power generation and water industries. In all, there are more than 6,000 Symphony DCS installations in operation all over the world, with more than 4,000 in power and water applications.

For more than 30 years, ABB has evolved the Symphony family through several evolutionary stages. Through our “Evolution without obsolescence” life cycle policy, each generation builds on and enhances its predecessors, adding technologies and new functionalities where it meets the performance objectives of various users – in operations, maintenance maintenance, engineering, IT and management. And it targets the key focus areas of the power and water industries – plant productivity, energy efficiency, operation security, plant safety and cost of ownership. It is an automation system that integrates all area of the plant in a simple, scalable, seamless, and secure manner.

Defining great performance
Symphony Plus enables plants and personnel to perform at their peak. It balances performance objectivities like asset availability, operational reliability and production efficiency with business goals like asset life extension, carbon reduction and regulatory compliance. In so doing, it provides plant owners with an essential tool for achieving sustainable profitable growth. Its defining features include the following:

Total Plant Automation
Symphony Plus provides users with a comprehensive view of the plant by integrating data from all plant areas and systems, including turbine control, electrical balance of plant, and remote SCADA systems. Through its open architecture, Symphony Plus seamlessly consolidates and rationalizes plant data to improve operator response to changing conditions, thereby improving plant safety and uptime.

Transforms data into actionable business decisions
Information is the key to successful business performance. In S+ Operations, historical, process and business data is collected from across the plant and stored securely. Transforming data into meaningful information, S+ Operations presents pertinent, easy-to-understand information in intuitive desktop displays to all levels of the organization.

Unified engineering workbench
Short time to production is the measure of engineering efficiency. S+ Engineering provides a world-class integrated engineering environment, with the requisite functionality to engineer, configure, administrate, secure, commission and maintain any system component – from field devices, electrical devices, control and I/O to operator workplace and gateway configuration.

Embedded ABB know-how
ABB brings more than 125 years of power and water expertise to each Symphony Plus solution. Our expertise has been successfully deployed in thousands of demanding installations across all types of application in the power generation and water industries. For each plant type, ABB combines in-depth process knowledge with extensive electrical and automation know-how to provide a best-in-class solution including, boiler protection/ burner management systems; turbine control; electrical balance of plant, water technologies and plant optimization.

Single control and I/O platform
Symphony Plus provides total plant automation from a single control and I/O platform that encompasses
dedication interface modules and devices for all turbine types, OEMs and sizes, as well as an unparalleled selection of combustion instruments.

Electrical and devise integration
Symphony Plus provides a process and electrical control from a single platform. Using open standard protocols like IEC 61850 and Modbus TCP, Symphony Plus integrates electrical devices with process control and plant operations. It provides full integration of just about every type of device, and enables the monitoring and management of all plant assets at all levels of the plant.

Inherent system security
ABB understands the need to maintain a secure, reliable control environment while expending minimal time and effort. In addition to the many security features built into Symphony Plus, ABB actively participates in several major control system security standards committees. The guidance provided by these committees is designed to increase the integrity and confidentiality of all system functions and help prevent unauthorized control system access.

Seamless life cycle management
Evolution and investment protection are the cornerstones of ABB’s product life cycle strategy. Our “Evolution without obsolescence” policy helps customers find a balance between upgrading with new technologies and maximizing the return on asset investments already made. Thanks to this policy, plant owners have the ability to extend the useful life of their systems through evolution and avoid the costly and high-risk rip-and-replace approach.

Life cycle services
ABB offers a complete portfolio of services, from repairs and spare parts to Full Service® contracts and complete plant upgrades and equipment retrofits. ABB services are available to enhance every phase of the plant life cycle, from first concept and frontend engineering to commissioning, operation and decommissioning. With unparalleled process, application and technology expertise, ABB is uniquely positioned to support changing needs and industry requirements.

The evolution continues
As Symphony Plus reaches the one-year anniversary of its introduction, ABB is excited to announce the addition of several new control and I/O products that are specifically designed to meet the present and future control needs of our customers. The new products include a new high-performance process controller named Symphony Plus Control HPC800 and three interface modules that expand the connectivity of the controller to intelligent electronic devices using the PROFIBUS DP and HART communication protocols.

HPC 800 joins existing Symphony Plus Rack controllers and is suitable for applications that require modular DIN rail packaging. It also features a fast Ethernet-based plant network that makes it ideal for geographically distributed control applications in conventional or renewable power plants and water networks.

The new controller combined with PROFIBUS and HART enables integration of intelligent devices such as smart transmitters, actuators, motor control centres, flame scanners and other electronic products. By using the same function code algorithms as Symphony Plus, Harmony, and INFI 90 Rack controllers, the HPC800 controller enables customers to effectively reuse their extensive library of ABB control solutions. The products also add to ABB’s comprehensive suite of new functionalities and enhancements introduced in all areas of the Symphony Plus platform. These range from electrical integration and alarm management to engineering efficiency and cyber security.

To learn more about Symphony Plus, contact your local ABB sales office or download a brochure at: www.abb.com/powergeneration

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Senoko Energy selects Symphony Plus

Senoko Energy recently selected ABB to upgrade the control system for units 3, 4 and 5 to S+ Operations, ABB’s intuitive and easy-to-use HMI for Symphony Plus systems. Senoko required a dedicated DCS historian for long-term data archiving to enhance plant integrity and confidentiality and provide inherent system security. After looking at the rich features of S+ Operations and evaluating the alternatives, Senoko selected S+ Operations as the ideal HMI upgrade solution.

Stepwise evolution

ABB’s stepwise evolution approach provides Senoko Energy with the flexibility to improve plant operations over time while maintaining its investment in human knowledge and in the existing DCS. Compared to rip-andreplace alternatives, S+ Operations was the lowest cost and lowest risk option for Senoko Energy to extend the operating life and attain the highest efficiency of its control system assets. ABB will upgrade all the critical hardware and software components of the existing Symphony control system and perform the upgrade online without any interruption to plant operations. To ensure a risk-free transition, S+ Operations will operate in parallel to the Process Portal B consoles throughout the upgrade process. The upgrade is scheduled for completion in July 2013.

The benefits for Senoko Energy in evolving their existing Symphony HMI to S+ Operations are extensive and include:

- Upgrade of all critical hardware and software in accordance with ABB’s unique and long-term life cycle policy of ‘Evolution without obsolescence’

- Improved system reliability and cyber protection thanks to the inherent security features in all core functional areas of Symphony Plus, including S+ Operations, to protect the integrity and reliability of system operations

- Extended operating life of the ABB control system

- No plant shutdown during system upgrade activities