Automation upgrade by Plug-In system migration

The Dakota Gasification Company selects Foxboro as automation partner for 5-year programme, to upgrade Honeywell and Bailey DCS to the I/A Series automation platform using a system migration approach

Dakota Gasification Company will upgrade obsolete Honeywell and Bailey distributed control systems to the state-of-the-art I/A Series automation platform using the unique Foxboro "plug in" system migration approach.

A subsidiary of Basin Electric Power Cooperative, Dakota Gasification Company (DGC) has selected the Foxboro unit of Invensys Process Systems as automation partner for a five-year modernisation project at the company's Great Plains Synfuels Plant located in Beulah, North Dakota.

Constructed in the 1980s, the plant currently produces more than 54 billion standard cubic feet of natural gas annually.

Plant by-products include fertilisers, solvents, phenol, carbon dioxide, and other chemicals.

Utilising its unique "plug in" system migration approach, Foxboro will help DGC to gradually upgrade the company's obsolete Honeywell and Bailey control systems to advanced I/A Series automation technology.

This approach enables legacy systems to be upgraded at minimum cost, with minimal risk, and with minimal process downtime by replacing the existing system I/O (input/output) modules with new I/A Series I/O modules designed to plug right into the existing system enclosures.

Existing field wiring and I/O terminations are also retained.

Prior to the actual system switchover, the existing control strategies are mapped to I/A Series control blocks and operator displays converted to the latest I/A Series graphical display technology.

At DGC, approximately 17,000 I/O points will be migrated to the new system.

"While our legacy distributed control systems have served us well, it's clear that they have reached the end of their useful service lives," said ATFunkhouser, Engineering Manager at Dakota Gasification Company.

"We looked at several different approaches for upgrading these obsolete systems to current automation technology and we're confident that Foxboro's approach represents the most cost-effective and lowest-risk solution for DGC".

As automation partner to Dakota Gasification Company, Invensys advanced control, optimisation, and asset management specialists will work closely with DGC personnel to leverage Foxboro, SimSci-Esscor, and other technology to help optimise production of synthetic natural gas and by-products, reduce energy usage, and improve responsiveness to customers.

The Great Plains Synfuels Plant appears as a massive complex of pipes, towers, and buildings on the rolling North Dakota prairie.

The plant is actually much more: it is part of an American dream.

The 1970s energy crisis spawned a vision of greater US energy independence.

Abundant lignite resources underlying the North Dakota plains held promise as a vast synthetic fuel source.

The Synfuels plant began operating in 1984 and today produces more than 54 billion standard cubic feet of natural gas annually.

Coal consumption exceeds six million tons each year.

Synthetic Natural Gas leaves the plant through a 2-foot diameter pipeline, traveling 34 miles south.

There it joins the Northern Border Pipeline, which transports the gas to four pipeline companies.

These companies supply thousands of homes and businesses in the eastern United States.

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