Consulting services in the Middle East

The GCC network is growing as new plants are brought online, causing grid instabilities such as power plant trips that have caused major blackouts like the one that hit the southern region. Furthermore, plants must comply with differing country grid codes before being connected to the national grid.

GE Consulting Services performed dynamic simulations to determine optimal operating parameters for all plants, determined that the power system stabilizers (PSSs) of new and existing plants should be tuned and switched on to avoid power oscillations, and performed testing activities at a handful of required plants.

GE Consulting Services conducted power flow, reactive compensation, and transient stability studies as well as model validation and testing on the cement’s production plant’s 3 gas turbines and 2 frequency converters. Other studies concerned protective device coordination and harmonic measurement/analysis.

ILMS (or Plant Management System [PMS]) logic was developed to help mitigate plant overloads, fast load shedding, and under frequency load shedding (UFLS) considering turbine uprates. Ongoing network reconfiguration studies will determine further updates to ILMS logic.

GE CS reviewed Dubai Aluminum Company LTD (DUBAL) consultant reports to determine that the aluminum smelter’s existing Power Management System (PMS) and Standalone Power System (SPS) was insufficient to meet stated requirements and needed to be upgraded.

Prepared the detailed SPS functional specification document to improve the DUBAL system’s security and reliability. Helped DUBAL upgrade the existing PMS and implement an SPS based on suggested functional specifications. Also helped develop a contingency matrix for different topologies and operating scenarios.

Aramco worked with GE Consulting Services to develop a Plant Management System (PMS) and test the Resistance Temperature Detectors (RTDs) at its Wasit gas plant, designed to process non-associated gas. A network islanding and stability study was also conducted for different contingencies and fault scenarios.

Following a two-phase study, Aramco developed a control philosophy for islanded operations as well as RTD test cases and acceptance criteria for customer witness tests. GE’s PMS solution successfully demonstrated PMS functionalities in the RTDs and built Aramco’s confidence in the overall solution.