Ethernet at BP Chemicals Baglan Bay site

For BP Chemicals, legacy infrastructure and the new automation systems needed to monitor and meter the services being exchanged with the adjacent power station means that a completely fresh approach to distributedmonitoring and control network was needed. An 11km long fast Ethernet helps BP Chemicals link six distributed I&C Local Equipment Rooms with a centralised HMI at BP‘s Baglan Bay site in South Wales. The Ethernet network, the largest ever installed at the Baglan Bay plant, allows for a truly distributed control system.

Project parameters

• There are 6 remote Local Equipment Rooms plus one in the IPA plant control room where the HMI is currently located.
• Each LER is effectively an I&C centre control-ling an outlying service unit – ranging from an effluent treatment plant to power and utilities.
• HART and 4-20mA technologies are used to connect field instrumentation to local DeltaV controllers inside the LERs.
• Fast Ethernet and TCP/IP running at 100Mbs is used. The entire system is designed to work at a maximum of 15% load to eliminate all possibility of overload. It is, in fact, running at less than 1% capacity.

Requirements

• Hirschmann™ RS2-FX/FX switches ensure deterministic performance because they eliminate the message „collisions“ of an office-type Ethernet.
• Hirschmann™ switches mean zero collisions and they route messages direct to their destination without delays.

Solution

• Executive data from the DeltaV equipment connects to one side of the Hirschmann™ switches using copper cable. It is then switched direct to the HMI over the fiber optic Fast Ethernet.
• Two Ethernet networks are used for resilience – a primary for normal use, and a secondary that automatically switches-in within 500ms if the primary fails – so all the remote LERs have at least two possible data routes back to the central HMI.
• "The benefits of using Ethernet are over-whelming. We are in no doubt that Ethernet is the future for process plant networking" – Darren Jones (Project Engineer).

Why Hirschmann™?

• Conforms to BP standards
• An industrialised solution
• Proven experience, recommendation
• Proven redundancy concept
• Switch diagnostics
• Rail mountable products