Steam Plant Control Room Expansion


Client:

Bayer CropScience

Location

Institute, WV

Augusta Project Number

193034

Value of Project:

$2 M


Description:

This project consisted of an upgrade of the Distributed Control System for Steam Plant No. 2 Control Room located within Bayer CropScience’s Institute, West Virginia plant. The project consisted of renovating the existing break room located within the steam plant, for its new use as an extension of the existing control room. Work involved running overhead cable trays outside the building and across the roof into the existing break room where the new DCS cabinets will be installed and running new control cables from the existing cabinets to the new DCS cabinets located in the control room.

The new space contains new cabinets that house rack-mounted components necessary for the monitoring and control of the steam plant’s daily operation. The renovation of the space presented some challenges due to its location immediately adjacent to two large turbine engines and several boilers. High ambient air temperatures and high noise levels were the norm, so the challenge became how to adequately cool the space due to both high temperatures outside and heat generating equipment inside in addition to quieting the noise generated by the equipment outside the space.

These challenges were met by designing a dedicated, redundant HVAC system to meet the cooling needs and installing sound attenuation insulation on the exterior surface of the walls facing the plant floor, to reduce the noise level within the space.

Preparation work involved removal of metal lockers, washer, dryer, wall-mounted corkboards, control valve and associated piping. Additionally it was necessary to remove the existing window and steel guardrail and ceiling paint. The expansion involved: filling in the exterior wall opening created by removal of the window, providing and installing a sound rated door assembly, new cable trays, painting the walls and ceiling of the room and prepping the existing concrete floor before coating it with a urethane floor coating.