Control system is built for the power industry

An Emerson Process Management - Power + Water product story

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Jan 28, 2005

Backed by more than 100 years of industry experience, Emerson Process Management continues to be the control system supplier of choice for the power industry.

Backed by more than 100 years of industry experience, Emerson Process Management continues to be the control system supplier of choice for the power industry.

The statistics speak for themselves.

Emerson is the number-one control systems supplier to US power generators.

Emerson's control systems are installed in plants representing more than 230GW of generating capacity, or more than 35% of electricity generated in the USA.

Sales of Emerson's Ovation expert control system to utilities have surpassed $1 billion.

All the top 10 US power companies (by generating capacity) rely on Ovation to simultaneously reduce costs and optimise plant performance.

"We are gratified at the positive customer response demonstrated by these statistics; they show that by nearly any measure, Emerson is the leading supplier of control solutions to the US power industry", said Bob Yeager, President of Emerson's Power and Water Solutions Division.

"It's a signal that we're succeeding in our number one objective - earning the highest level of customer confidence, day in and day out, by offering a combination of people, technology and experience that the competition can't match", he continued.

Ovation, a key technology that powers Emerson's PlantWeb digital plant architecture, was designed and built for the power generation industry and has been proven in thousands of power installations.

Of course, technology doesn't stand still, and neither has Ovation, which has continually evolved to take advantage of the latest technologies.

Today's Ovation boasts a number of industry-leading advanced technologies: the incorporation of embedded advanced algorithms specifically tailored to meet the challenges of electricity generation; a mission-critical, 100Mbit/s Fast Ethernet network with a 100,000 point/s capability; the industry's most powerful controller with the fastest duty cycle available; and a full line of analogue, digital and special-purpose turbine and boiler control modules, among others.

Ovation's integrated digital bus capabilities leverage Foundation fieldbus, Hart, DeviceNet and Profibus DP industry standard communications protocols.

This open, standards-based approach enables power generation customers to optimise reliability, performance and environmental compliance through the integration of high-speed communications networks, intelligent field devices and bus I/O technologies.

"Simply put, Ovation always has and always will meet the unique needs of power generators by incorporating the latest software and hardware technology", said Yeager.

This is possible due to Emerson's innovative product evolution philosophy.

This philosophy assures that an Ovation system incorporates the latest technologies while also providing the best product evolution approach to ensure that customers can efficiently and economically take advantage of leading technologies over the life cycle of their plant.

"The core of the Ovation strategy is protecting our customers' investment in applications, database and graphics while introducing leading-edge technologies", explained Yeager, who points out that Emerson's product evolution philosophy is in contrast to some competitors who introduce new architectures, brandishing new system names, on a fairly regular basis.

Although technologies will continue to evolve, Emerson's commitment to Ovation as a robust, state-of-the-art control system built for the power industry remains a constant, according to Yeager.

"With more than $1 billion in sales, Ovation is a trusted control solution for the power industry", said Yeager.

"Power generators can rest assured that an ongoing integration of leading-edge technologies will keep Ovation at the forefront of control not only today, but also in the future".

"When it comes to control solutions for the power industry, no one has a better strategy, product or track record".