Articles

The local Business Unit Power Generators in South Africa has successfully completed and received the take-over certificate from ESKOM for the Majuba Power Station Outside Plant control system on April 01, 2001.

As one of the largest installations of this product type in the world, This Distributed Control System (DCS) consists of, over 60,000 I/O distributed in 64 field controllers, monitored and controlled from 19 operator stations. These are linked back into 4 information management systems and interconnected via 34 Fiber Optic Hubs, over 120km of Fiber Optic lines. The installed DCS furthermore interfaces with the boiler and turbine control systems via 6 software links and expand into the national grid network via two software links specifically designed for Majuba Power Station.

The initial project started with a contract award in 1993 valued at USD 16,11M to supply, install and commission the C&I and distributed control system, and associated interfaces for units 1 to 3 Outside Plant at Majuba Power Plant. The successes achieved with the initial order led to the award of an additional contract, to extend the Outside Plant system into the remainder of the units (units 4-6) valued at USD 5.0M.

The Outside Plant areas mainly consists of the following areas:

• Ash handling plants
• Coal stacking and conveying plants
• Water treatment plants
• Condensation and polishing plants
• Air auxiliaries
• Cooling plants
• Energy measurement & data acquisition systems

Under stringent construction conditions, the ABB Majuba team engineered, installed and commissioned all the software and hardware with the installation and commissioning of all the related C&I equipment, meeting all target dates, milestones and contractual completion dates.

The project team consisted of one project manager four lead engineers, three assistant engineers, and one erection manager with seven team members and three general and documentation administrators. This team expanded into ABB Sweden as a support partner.

Accomplishments during project execution involved the training of eight ESKOM employees and various certificates as detailed below and zero disabling injury safety track record.

During the period of project execution, ESKOM awarded ABB the following certificates:

• ESKOM Executive Directors award for Outstanding Contract Management - 1995
• Certificate for Quality Achievement (ISO9000) - 1995 to 1999

The project closeout ceremony held on the 1 st April 2001 and subsequent handing over of the take over certificate marked the end of an successful delivery from the local ABB team and their support partners from ABB Sweden, which, remarkably is an outstanding achievement.

Congratulations to all the personnel involved in making this project a tremendous success.

ABB Power Plant Automation

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