Salt River Project has completed standardizing four hydroelectric dams in Arizona using Emerson’s Ovation platform
The Salt River Project (SRP) has completed the modernization of four hydroelectric dams on the Salt River in Arizona: Roosevelt, Horse Mesa, Mormon Flat, and Stewart Mountain. The four dams generate 265 MW of hydropower, enough to supply more than 60,000 homes annually.
SRP, the largest utility in the Phoenix area, is upgrading the aging excitation systems essential for power generation at the dams and integrating them with existing distributed control systems. To standardize and streamline operations, SRP has selected Emerson’s Ovation Automation Platform.
By adopting modern control strategies, SRP aims to reduce operations and maintenance costs by 30% and cut troubleshooting time by half, enhancing reliability and overall grid performance. Improved operational visibility has also made startup and shutdown procedures more efficient, eliminating delays that once could have doubled their duration.
Theodore Roosevelt Dam in Arizona. Image used courtesy of SRP
Why Standardize Hydropower Systems?
To standardize, SRP is adopting one common automation and control platform across all its dams instead of using a mix of different systems, vendors, and technologies. This approach provides consistency, easier maintenance and upgrades, and improved reliability.
SRP is a long-time operator of the Bureau of Reclamation’s dams. In addition, the supplier is responsible for delivering reliable, clean, and continuous power to the community.
Power plant generators and their excitation control systems are essential for maintaining grid stability. If an aging excitation control system becomes damaged or fails, it can cause an unplanned outage and significant revenue loss. As industry standards evolve, older systems may no longer meet current requirements and in many cases, compatible upgrades are no longer available to bring legacy equipment into compliance.
Emerson’s Ovation Automation Platform will modernize SRP’s dams. Image used courtesy of Emerson
Rapid population growth and record electricity demand in the Phoenix area, combined with increasingly extreme temperatures, have pushed energy providers like SRP to invest in strengthening their infrastructure, including modernizing generator excitation systems.
Ovation Excitation Systems
The Ovation system features built-in generator excitation control for rotating and static exciters. It uses the platform’s shared tools, such as HMIs, networking, data historian, alarms, engineering interfaces, diagnostics, and security, to improve decision-making and operator efficiency.
The system can also incorporate an integrated power system stabilizer software and a full range of protection and limiting functions to meet specific plant requirements.
This flexible, single-platform solution supports synchronous generators in hydro, fossil, and nuclear power plants with field current needs up to 10,000 amps. Designed for both new installations and retrofits, the Ovation excitation system can be customized to fit each plant’s layout and generator design.
Emerson’s excitation controller. Image used courtesy of Emerson
Larger Grid Modernization
SRP’s hydroelectric standardization is part of a broader grid modernization initiative with Emerson’s technologies over several years.
In addition to deploying the Ovation Automation Platform at its dams, SRP uses Emerson’s OSI digital grid solutions to efficiently manage its power distribution network, optimize operations, and integrate a growing number of distributed energy resources. Emerson’s smart grid platform helps coordinate SRP’s distribution operations, which deliver electricity to more than 1 million users across central Arizona.
SRP’s multiyear plan is to tackle next-generation grid challenges, including managing the rapid growth of distributed energy resources such as solar, wind, and cogeneration. It’s also addressing the grid’s ability to handle bidirectional power flow and integrate a greater share of intermittent renewable energy sources.
