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Issue 30 - March 2000
Beckwith Electric recently shipped the largest order ever of its line of products known as the Autodaptive® Volt/VAr Management System. Entergy Corporation, one of the largest utilities in the United States with nearly 30,000 megawatts of plant generation capability, purchased over seven hundred ACC’s (M-2501A Autodaptive® Capacitor Controls). Entergy, headquartered in New Orleans, Louisiana, delivers electricity to about 2.5 million customers in portions of Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. According to Rick O’Brien, a Senior Staff Engineer with Distribution Standards at Entergy, the company had previously used various temperature, time and VAr controls with voltage overrides for their capacitors. "The controls required meticulous settings by the engineers which were very time-consuming," said O’Brien. "With the Beckwith controls, no setting changes are necessary. We can’t ask for better performance, and the Beckwith controls cost less as well. By maximizing the use of our capacitors, we achieve the balance of service reliability and economics that we strive for."
Tom Jauch, Beckwith Electric’s Manager of Application Engineering for Controls and Control Systems, said that the reduced maintenance costs due to the lack of setting changes on the ACC is an important factor for any company to evaluate. One utility estimated their annual cost of engineering and field personnel time for capacitor bank control setting changes for seasonal and system changes is approximately $500 per control. Since the ACC needs no adjustments but rather adapts itself to seasonal and system changes, a subsequent operating cost reduction per unit would be realized after initial installation. Entergy also evaluated other factors in the decision to purchase these controls, according to O’Brien—a 32-year veteran of Entergy’s distribution operations. One was the reduced number of line regulator and LTC transformer tap change operations, which thereby reduce the field maintenance associated with these devices. The ACC is also easy to install—it can be plugged into a standard four or six blade meter socket and has a shatterproof LEXAN® cover for protection from the elements. It requires no battery, and no external communications. The ACC, in effect, communicates with other Autodaptive® devices on the feeder or in the substation via the very media it senses, the line voltage itself. "It is this ‘plug and play’ feature of the ACC that makes the device so appealing to customers," said Jauch. Another successful feature of the ACC is the reduced losses due to better power factor profiles. Flatter voltage profiles on the distribution line is another benefit of the ACC’s more accurate switching times. According to Mark Dixon, Manager for Autodaptive® Systems, the ACC can optimize the effectiveness of installed distribution system capacitor banks by controlling circuit voltage and reducing system losses due to VAr flow. The ACC systematically adapts its operation to the average voltage at the point of installation or a fixed setpoint voltage, the voltage change caused by capacitor switching, and the number of switch operations. The ACC adapts to system source impedances by responding to small voltage changes near a substation or larger voltage changes near the end of a line. The ACC has programmable upper and lower voltage limits that can be programmed at any system voltage levels, as long as they are 6 volts apart. The ACC can operate as a stand-alone control or it can be utilized as a critical component of an overall Volt/VAr Management System. Besides the ACC, the Beckwith Electric Autodaptive® System also includes the M-2667 Autodaptive® LTC Tapchanger Control (ATC) and the M-2600 line of Autodaptive® Regulator tapchanger Controls (ARCs). As system loading and VAr requirements change, the ACC will continue to adjust its operation and adapt to it a new set of circumstances. It will adapt to circuit changes, as well as operational changes without modification, additional programming, or intervention of any kind. The ACC has data logging capabilities for status and performance data that can be extracted for analysis. Refer to the ACC Data figure. The ACC has local LEDs for visual status indication and is even intelligent enough to know when low ambient light conditions exist and will automatically dim the LEDs. According to Dixon, "Utilities all over the country are doing economic evaluations on newly installed equipment to help determine overall bottom line effectiveness and to determine payback and return on investment for their shareholders. Recently, the quality of delivered power at the customer has been of utmost importance and Volt/VAr Management Systems have risen to the forefront. Customers are realizing savings in losses, reduced maintenance, deferred capital expenditure and operating cost." Interested? For more information, contact Beckwith Electric at (727) 544-2326 or e-mail at marketing@beckwithelectric.com.
Beckwith Relays Introduced in Nicaragua The sugar mill known as Agroinsa is one of seven sugar mills in Nicaragua. It has been producing sugar and molasses, as well as generating its own electricity, since its completion in 1985. After 13 years of production, Agroinsa decided to modernize the protection system of their generators. They chose Beckwith Electric to help with this effort and as a result, Beckwith has formed a strong partnership in Nicaragua. The electricity generation plant of Agroinsa is composed of three installed 4 MW back-pressure turbine generators, as well as two new 12 MW turbine generators that have yet to be installed. During the sugar cane harvest season which runs from December through May, the three 4 MW turbine generators are used to produce 24 MW of electricity and to provide the steam needed for the sugar process. Only 6.8 MW are consumed by the mill while the remainder is sold to the national power company. During the off-season, when all five generators are put on-line, they will produce 36 MWH of electricity. Of this amount, only 2.5 MW are consumed by the plant and the remainder is sold to the national power company. The off-season lasts 180 days, including 30 days for maintenance. To protect these generators, Agroinsa was using older electromechanical relays. In 1998, they decided to modernize by replacing all their protective relays with digital relays that "incorporated all the functions in one package," said Engineer Fernando Melendez, Agroinsa’s Electrical Department Manager. A mutual business acquaintance suggested that Beckwith contact Agroinsa, and the result was Agroinsa’s purchase of Beckwith’s M-3420 Integrated Protection System®. "Due to their worldwide leadership in generator protection relays, we decided to purchase a Beckwith relay in 1998," said Melendez.
In mid-1998, the unit was shipped and installed. Beckwith’s Tony Brown, Latin America Regional Director, and Armand Tetreault, Field Service Engineer, traveled to Nicaragua for two days of testing and commissioning of the relay. A few months later, Agroinsa purchased two additional M-3420 relays (one for each of their three 4 MW generators). This year, they purchased a fourth M-3420 relay to use as a spare. Melendez explains: "This selection was based on the quality of the relay plus the extraordinary functionality of the software and oscillography in the Windows version, which we consider to be the easiest and most functional in existence. These factors, coupled with the immediate response of Beckwith’s personnel for technical assistance, assured that we are very satisfied." Beckwith is equally impressed with Agroinsa. Tony Brown expressed, " I am very pleased with the relationship we have formed with Agroinsa. Besides being business partners, we have formed a strong friendship. Agroinsa is very committed to Beckwith and is the kind of customer that all businesses would like to have." Melendez also added, "In the next amplification of our generator system, we will be installing another two generators which will complete our 36 MW system. The protection for these machines will also be provided by Beckwith. Interested? For more information, contact Beckwith Electric at (727) 544-2326 or e-mail at marketing@beckwithelectric.com.
The M-2001B Digital Tapchanger Control is one of Beckwith Electric’s leading products. This is due, in part, to the tremendous assortment of useful features it provides. This article focuses on one of those features: Data Logging. Data logging is a new feature that emerged with the M-2001B. When used with the M-2029 TapTalk® Communications Software, it allows the user to select parameters and log them in the control for later download. This is similar to the Spreadsheet Logging feature introduced in the M-2001A. The main difference between these features is that the Spreadsheet Logger requires a PC to be present and running TapTalk® for the entire duration of logging. The Data Logging feature stores data in the M-2001B’s internal memory for later retrieval. The parameters that can be logged by using either feature are:
With the Data Logging feature, information can be downloaded from the M-2001B’s memory into a comma-separated variable or CSV file. This file can then be loaded into a spreadsheet program such as Microsoft® Excel and analyzed. The M-2001B has enough storage space to log all thirteen parameters for almost a week at one-minute intervals. Data logging is done in a circular fashion. After the memory has been filled, when a new sample is taken—the oldest sample is removed. Therefore, the control always contains the latest data. The user chooses which parameters to log and at what interval in the Data Logger window of TapTalk®. It is similar to the Spreadsheet Logger window and allows the user to specify all of the same parameters for logging. Since the Spreadsheet Logging feature requires TapTalk® and a PC to operate, it saves data directly to the file specified. This allows for a nearly infinite amount of data to be collected. Because the Data Logging feature stores the collected data in the control’s onboard memory, there are limitations to the amount it can store. When the user specifies the time interval and which parameters they want in the Data Logger window, the Maximum Available Data that the control can hold is computed.
At any time, such as when a fault occurs, the M-2001B can be interrogated and a CSV file can be produced with all of the desired data. The user can then take advantage of the powerful graphing capabilities of Excel to aid in diagnostic analysis of their distribution system. Interested? For more information, contact Beckwith Electric at (727) 544-2326 or e-mail at marketing@beckwithelectric.com.
Free Information on www.beckwithelectric.com In December of 1999, a completely redesigned version of the Beckwith Electric corporate website was unveiled. Along with a new look and navigational structure, the site gained some new content. One of the new areas added was the Industry Info Center. The aim of the Industry Info Center is to bring valuable technical information to website visitors. Feature papers are posted covering a range of topics in the power utility industry. Papers currently posted include:
This paper presents the reasons why utilities as well as non-utility generator owners should consider upgrading the electrical protection of their generators to meet today’s standards. It specifically outlines the risks assumed in eight functional areas where 20+ year old generator protection is inadequate.
Interconnection will have renewed importance in the next millennium if the predictions of a number of industry experts become reality. This paper outlines the salient points that utilities and IPP owners need to consider when developing interconnection requirements.
With the advent of more powerful microprocessor-based digital transformer relays, integration of additional functions beyond transformer differential and overcurrent relaying is possible within these relay packages. This paper outlines a number of specific applications and logic schemes that can benefit users. All of these documents are available in Adobe® Acrobat® format for download and printing free of charge. To view documents, you must have Adobe® Acrobat® Viewer available from www.adobe.com also free of charge. Many of the documents in the Industry Info Center are also available in Spanish and others will be added soon, so be sure to return every once in a while and see what new papers have been added.
Before joining Beckwith Electric, Lou was Director of Finance at Inex Vision Systems for eight years. He contributed to the strategy that allowed the company to grow from $5 million to $40 million with locations in England, Germany, Australia, Spain and Colombia. This growth culminated in a successful public offering on the London Stock Exchange. Lou also has eight years of experience as a corporate Financial Planning Analyst and divisional Accounting and Budgeting Manager with the Stanley Works. He holds a Bachelor of Business Administration in Accounting and a Master of Business Administration in Finance, both from Pace University in New York City.
Articles from Issue 30, March 2000 of Beckwith Electric's Powerlines. |
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Louis
Abilock was appointed President of Beckwith Electric Co. on January 7.
He had previously served as Beckwith Electric’s Vice-President of
Finance and Chief Financial Officer, and joined the company in 1991. He
has been responsible for the financial direction of the company including
banking relations, budgeting, cash management, forecasting, payroll, cost
accounting, and information systems.