Fast Track Control Systems Upgrade, 75 Day Outage Challenge

Trusted to Deliver

Drax power station is the largest single-site generator of renewable power in the UK and Europe’s biggest decarbonisation project. Providing 12% of the country’s renewable power around 15 terawatt-hours (TWh) – enough electricity to power the equivalent of four million homes. It is now the site of innovation for bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), a negative emissions technology essential for fighting the climate crisis.

We’ve been working with Drax for over twenty years, upgrading control systems to provide the capacity and flexibility for continued process performance improvements across the site, minimising operational risk.

Future-proof Infrastructure

Having already completed 80% of the control system upgrades at Drax, including upgrades at Units 1 and 2, we were selected to replicate the same approach at Unit 3. The work required to upgrade the unit was extensive and based on the most advanced technology available. Work included the replacement of obsolete legacy controllers with modern processors with more than 5,000 channels. The new systems underwent extensive factory-acceptance testing and simulation to verify their control performance and integration with third-party systems.

Accelerated timeline

Despite the backdrop of the global Covid-19 pandemic, we successfully delivered the upgrade to an accelerated outage timeline of 75 days from start to completion, assuring the “return to service” of the unit and early income from the revenue stream. The works, including disconnection and removal of the legacy control system, new cubicles, new cabling, and reconnection and testing of all plant signals, were completed ahead of the major commissioning and mechanical testing and in accordance with the time, cost and quality standards demanded.