Emerson to retrofit Sellafield plant

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania - Sellafield Ltd has awarded Emerson Process Management a contract to retrofit obsolete plant and turbine controls at its Fellside Power Station. The combined heat and power (CHP) facility comprises three 40MW GE Frame 6B gas turbines and one 68MW steam turbine, for a total generating capacity of 188MW.

The plant provides electricity to the UK national grid as well as steam to a nearby Sellafield nuclear facility. This contract covers replacement of the controls on one gas turbine and heat recovery steam generator (HRSG). The retrofit will take place during a scheduled eight-week outage starting in September, with the plant due to restart commercial operation in November.

For the turbine controls upgrade, Emerson will replace existing GE Speedtronic Mark IV turbine controls with its Ovation technology. The company will also perform various instrument upgrades on the GE gas turbine, such as installing hydraulic servo valves, linear variable displacement transducers and flame detectors.

For the HRSG controls retrofit portion of the project, Emerson will replace an outdated Alstom Microrec control system, installing its proven PlantWeb digital plant architecture with the Ovation expert control system.

The Ovation system will monitor and control the Alstom HRSG and supplementary firing duct burners, as well as the GE combustion turbine, including overspeed protection. It will also monitor the generator synchroniser functions and interface with the existing continuous emissions monitoring system.

“Ovation met all of our key functional requirements and, along with Emerson's engineering and support capabilities, gave us confidence that a retrofit project of this size and complexity could be completed in the very tight plant outage window,” said Ian Rae, project manager, Sellafield Ltd.