Improves Power Plant Safety and Efficiency for Romania

The communications equipment used in the Turceni Power Plant in Turceni, Romania, was not meeting the plant’s communications requirements. To solve this problem, the plant’s communications department recently decided to install a new system that would simplify and centralise its communications.

Zetron authorised reseller, Uniaxis, was chosen to supply and deploy this system, which is now providing Turceni with the consolidated communications the plant needs. The system has already improved plant operations and safety. In addition, the system’s flexibility will support the expansion planned for Turceni in the future.

Romania’s largest coal-powered plant
Providing electricity for Romania is a huge undertaking. The country covers an area of approximately 238,000 square kilometres. With a population of nearly 23 million, Romania, is the second most populous country in Central and Eastern Europe.

Fossil-fuel-powered generators provide approximately 60 percent of the total power produced within the country. Most of this is created by large, thermal-electric power plants. The largest of these power plants is the coal-powered generator located at Turceni in southwestern Romania. It is capable of generating about 1,500 megawatthours (MWh)–enough to power approximately 150,000 homes.

The plant facilities cover some 1,293 hectares and include six operational turbine generators. These generators, first commissioned in 1978, make Turceni the largest installed capacity power plant in Romania. It burns around a million tons of coal per month.

The challenges at the Turceni Power Plant
Current plans call for the state-run electric-distribution company to be privatised by 2007, the year Romania expects to join the European Union. This prompted the Turceni plant to modernise and refurbish its facilities to increase energy production and efficiency, and reduce emissions. This project included improving the site’s communications system.

In their initial assessment, the communications department found that their communications system was sorely lacking. The variety of radios and telephones on the desk made working conditions for system operators difficult. And because the equipment did not facilitate direct control, it also made running the plant much more complicated than it needed to be.

To solve these problems, the communications department decided to create a dispatch centre for its radio system. They wanted an easy-to-use, intuitive, compact, radio-dispatch centre that could be tailored to meet their current needs and expand over time.

A new dispatch centre provides a solution
Zetron’s reseller, Uniaxis, of Bucuresti (Bucharest), Romania, was chosen to provide and deploy the equipment. Uniaxis installed the new equipment and now helps maintain the facility’s new communications network.

The system consists of a Zetron DCS-5020 console, which is situated in the central control room; several exchange telephone phone lines; and four Motorola mobile radios, which are installed as base stations.

Uniaxis chose the DCS-5020 for a number of reasons, including the following:

• It helps save space and simplifies the working environment.

• It combines all of the necessary radio and telephone features into a single, simple-to-use console.

• It provides a migration path to other technologies. This was important because plans for the facility include moving to either an MPT or TETRA radio network. The DCS-5020 supports such a move.

The new system can now be staffed by three shifts of operators. This ensures 24-hour coverage. In addition, the screen layout has been customised to match operators’ requirements and give them instant access to all of the information they need. This helps ensure that critical situations are met with timely and appropriate responses. The system also controls the output of the plant and the maintenance crews.

Reaping positive results
Turceni’s new communications system has already greatly improved plant safety as well as the effectiveness and efficiency of day-to-day operations.