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The Challenges and the SolutionsThe two members of the Granite Power development team, Sean McCracken and Matt Patterson, had limited funds and were looking for partners who could assist with hardware and had the expertise and willingness to work with them during the engineering phase to address a number of unknown variables. In selecting Yokogawa, Granite Power gained a partner that had the local engineering expertise needed to understand the challenges and was able to supply a flexible, cost effective, and workable control solution. The development team worked very closely with the Yokogawa engineering team, drawing on the core competencies of both companies to develop solutions for the unexpected challenges that were encountered during the project. The Yokogawa engineers devel-oped an interface between the solar power system and this facility’s turbo generator and BOP facilities. Yokogawa’s power station engineering experts also worked to optimize the operations of the custom-designed turbo generator. The use of a single STARDOM controller for the in-tegrated control of the solar field, balance of plant (BOP) facilities, and turbo generator enabled sig-nificant savings in both space and cost. The FAST/TOOLS SCADA provided an all-in-one monitoring, alarm, data historian, trending, and reporting solution, and enabled easy remote access for offsite use. The FAST/TOOLS software could be installed on the notebook PCs used by the development team, eliminating the need for costly dedicated servers. As an added benefit, this enhanced security by making it possible to remove all proprietary information from the site.Customer SatisfactionWith its advanced capabilities, the integrated Yokogawa control solution provides an ideal and highly flexible solution that can easily be customized as the plant evolves. Sean McCracken, project manager, said, “The FAST/TOOLS STARDOM solution was perfect for our plant with plenty of growth potential. Although we only a demonstration plant, the control is as complicated as a large plant with the added challenge of managing a boiler that is effectively turned off and on by the passing of clouds. The development of the control and management of the plant was streamlined with FAST/TOOLS helps analyse our data and quantify the per-formance of the novel power plant.”Matt Patterson, project engineer said “The combi-nation of the STARDOM Controller and FAST/TOOLS has proved powerful and flexible for our requirements. Even for novices like us, we easily configured Fast/Tools for our monitoring, alarm, data historian and trending. The STARDOM controller has had more than enough capacity for us to automate our plant, which as a solar thermal power plant starts and stops at least once per day with many off design control requirements. The Yokogawa solution has allowed us to complete our research within tough budget and time constraints and has left a legacy that will be the back bone of further research and commercial ventures in coming years.”Main SCADA screenTurbo generatorGRANEX® heat transfer test bedSuccess Story Collection6Granite Power / Australia