Product category:
Plantwide control
News Release from: System Devices | Subject: Opto 22
Edited by the Engineeringtalk Editorial
Team on 25 August 2006
Telecomms carrier optimises power and
cooling
Verizon Communications uses an Opto 22-based monitoring system to optimise power consumption at its central office in Garden City, Long Island, New York.
Verizon Communications, one of the largest telecommunications companies in the world, delivers voice, video, data, and other communication services to its customers over both wired and wireless connections To serve its customers throughout various geographic regions, Verizon provides services from its many central office switching facilities
This article was originally published on Engineeringtalk on 5 May 2000 at 8.00am (UK)
Related stories
I/O modules interface with RS-232 serial devices
One of the high points of this year's Automation and Robotics 2000 Show was the launch by Opto 22 of a new family of I/O modules which interface with any RS-232 serial device.
Ethernet goes way beyond control
There's no doubt that Ethernet has a fantastic future and one which will go way beyond industrial control, says System Devices MD Roger Williams
These COs house critical electronic switching and backup power equipment for Verizon's wireline communications operations that naturally use a great deal of power when operating.
Because most electronic systems are subject to failure if left in overheated environments for long periods of time, Verizon's COs are also equipped with numerous cooling systems.
These air conditioners, cooling units, and air handlers also draw very large current loads.
Verizon thus requires massive amounts of reliable, high-quality power - up to 5.1 billion kilowatt-hours annually - to keep its COs up and running.
Verizon recently undertook an initiative to meet these challenges by establishing a prototype "central office of the future" in Garden City, Long Island, New York.
Further reading
Opto22 control system at the heart of Harman plans
Much of increasing growth at audio system product manufacturer Harman Motive will be driven by Opto 22 controls and Epson robots supplied by System Devices
Opto 22 at the heart of new brake valve test rig
Opto 22 control lies at the heart of a new high-speed, anti-lock brake valve test rig developed by Cardiff-based Industrial Electronic Automation.
Giant robot manipulator I/O handled by Opto 22
Opto 22 controls supplied by System Devices are at the heart of a successful project to install a giant press and integrated robot manipulator at Sheffield Forgemasters Engineering.
This particular central office is equipped with new distributed energy systems that provide clean, reliable, and efficient power and cooling, proactive monitoring and control of the same.
The Garden City central office is a 27,000m2 building that serves more than 35,000 customers on Long Island.
The facility makes use of waste heat from onsite generators in a cogeneration system.
Cogeneration (also called combined heat and power, or CHP) is the use of power facility equipment to simultaneously generate both heat and electricity.
Conventional power plants release heat (created as a byproduct of electricity generation) into the environment through cooling towers, as flue gas, or by other means.
Cogeneration captures this excess heat for domestic or industrial heating and cooling purposes.
In Garden City, seven fuel cells, reciprocating engines, two absorption chillers, and a heat recovery steam generator (HRSG) provide power and cooling to the facility.
For example, steam byproduct is used for large air-conditioner units through the turning of a steam turbine connected to a compressor that chills water for various air handlers.
During normal operation, most of the central office's 2.7MW building load is met by a combination of a dual-fuel reciprocating engine, two diesel engines, and the fuel cells, which are electrochemical energy conversion devices similar to batteries but different in that they are designed for continuous replenishment.
More precisely, fuel cells produce electricity using an external supply of fuel and oxygen as opposed to a finite amount of internal energy stored inside a battery.
The engines and fuel cells are the primary source of electricity for the telecommunications systems and the supporting equipment at the Garden City CO, and the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA) grid provides any additional power needs.
Per Verizon's agreement with the Long Island Power Authority, five of the seven fuel cells are permitted to operate during the peak summer season (1st June to 30th September).
All seven fuel cells are allowed to operate at all other times.
They, along with the dual-fuel engine, are paralleled to the utility to reduce LIPA's supplemental power requirements to around only 100kW of the total building load.
This arrangement prevents Verizon from drawing too much power from the grid.
To guarantee the reliability of these systems and to ensure that all critical loads are being properly fed, Verizon has deployed a comprehensive monitoring system.
Designed and implemented by Marine Interface, a supplier of hardware, software, and integration services for power-related applications, this system was expressly designed using hardware from Opto 22 and consists of a complete Ethernet-based solution.
At the facility, Marine Interface installed a network of 12 Opto 22 Snap Ultimate I/O and Snap Simple IO units along with Opto 22 Snap I/O mounting racks and I/O modules.
These racks and various I/O modules are used to gather information from all of the site's electrical metering systems, circuit breakers, engine electronics, fuel tank systems etc The Opto 22 systems make use of the many hardwired analogue and digital signals as well as the serial data feeds from the electrical switchgear, metering systems, engines, control processors and fuel systems.
All data are converted into Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) form for remote network access and monitoring.
Marine Interface programmed the Opto 22 systems to provide alarms using SNMP "trap" report-by-exception messages.
These messages, along with those from all other buildings, are then dispatched to a central server (at a Verizon data centre in Wantagh, New York) running Computer Associates' Unicentre software for asset management.
There, everything is remotely monitored via SNMP-based viewers that graphically display system status and alarm messages.
Remote capabilities provided by this system include: monitoring of circuit breaker positions, feeder loads, fuel, and relay status; delivery of utility power and power quality reports; SNMP-based remote alarm notification, acknowledgement and reset; and on/off control.
But Verizon's monitoring system is also integrated into the CHP system as it recovers and utilises heat from fuel cells, engines, and turbines to provide cooling and optimise fuel utilisation.
Through SNMP-based report-by-exception monitoring, the Opto 22 system manages and provides immediate notifications on the fuel cell-generated power used in parallel with the grid, as well as on the state of standby power systems.
For example, switchgear housed in the central office are considered "hot spots", meaning they require significant cooling.
High-grade waste heat from the fuel cells is recovered and used by two 70-tonne Thermax lithium bromide absorption chillers to cool the central office in the summer.
(During the winter months, the waste heat is used to supplement that from existing boilers.) At any time, should temperatures surrounding the switches exceed a predefined threshold, Verizon supervisors receive immediate Unicentre SNMP alerts.
Verizon's CHP system went online in June of 2005.
Since then, the facility has been operating at a rate where it produces nearly 16 million BTU (MMBTU) of useful thermal energy and 38,000 MMBTU of useful electrical energy yearly.
Achieving this requires around 105,000 MMBTU of fuel, for a resulting fuel utilisation efficiency of over 50%.
Furthermore, the waste heat from the fuel cells used with the chillers allows Verizon to dramatically reduce operation of the chillers themselves and thereby realise major energy cost savings.
Also, the HRSG that reclaims waste heat from the seven fuel cells during the winter months reduces Verizon's boiler fuel usage by almost two-thirds, significantly reducing nitrous oxide (NOx) and other pollutant emissions in the process.
This reduction allows the Verizon facilities to operate longer without exceeding regulatory NOx emission caps, resulting in still more cost savings.
The Opto 22 system is used to monitor and automatically record data on the facility's various diesel, natural gas, and heating oil fuel consumptions in real time for the purpose of demonstrating compliance with mandated facility emissions limits.
Verizon received performance contracts from the Federal Government for this project of just over $3 million, as well as a $425,000 cost-share grant from NYSERDA, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, which offers rebates and other incentives for businesses that initiate energy curtailment programmes and significantly reduce their dependence on the grid.
Verizon hopes to replicate the success of its Garden City location at several more of its central offices.
The company's ultimate goal is to provide reliable service to its customers, at reasonable prices, and with minimal environmental impact.
Eventually, Verizon's Garden City operation could serve as the paradigm for how the company, other major carriers, and the telecommunications industry at large operate their networks.
• System Devices: contact details and other news
• Email this article to a colleague
• Register for the free Engineeringtalk email newsletter
• Engineeringtalk Home Page
Search the Pro-Talk network of sites
