Computers in the Workplace:
This week I am going to address the
role of computers and technology in the power industry. Specifically, I will discuss electric
generation. Back before computers were
commonplace, generators and equipment in power plants were operated directly by
switches, knobs, levers and dials. As
computers became more prevalent, they were integrated into power plants to
operate electronic control systems, logic controllers and electronically
controlled industrial devices. This now
allows plant operators to remotely monitor and adjust settings to keep power
plants online and supplying reliable energy to the electric grid. For this reason it is important for the
control room operators to be familiar with computer operations as it will allow
them to interface with and control the machinery that they are tasked with.
There are many functions that
computers serve in a power plant. Just a
few are monitoring screens, Electronic Controls (MODBUS), Big Data Management,
(Pi), Environmental Monitoring systems (EMS), Human Interfaces for Machine Controls
(HMI), and Remote Terminal Units (RTUs) that all integrate into Supervisory
control and data acquisition systems (SCADA).
If we put all of these together you then have a fully functioning
control system for a modern powerplant (Death Star).
In the future I see all these
interfaces becoming more standardized and able to control more. However due to the high security nature of
the power grid and the NERC/CIP requirements there will be disconnects and
manual interfaces to continue to maintain a separation of these electronic
controls from the rest of the world. As
the power grid is a popular target of foreign countries and terrorist
organizations great care is taken to keep these systems away from their
influence. Due to this fact I don’t see
much internet or network interface improvement within the next 10 years or so
but I expect to see huge leaps in data analytics, incident investigation and
management and control interfaces with increased processing power. I look forward to implementing and designing
the infrastructure to support this data flow.
I know this is a lot to digest in
~250 words so please do not hesitate to ask if you would like more detail on
any topics that I have breached here.
Cheers,
AAron
References
Vahid, F., & Lysecky, S. (2017). Computing
technology for all. Retrieved from zybooks.zyante.com/
Breitenmoser, Kurt (Director). (2012) Creating Mobile Apps: Development and Deployment [Film]. Films for the Humanities & Sciences VEA
Group Pty Ltd. Mobile App Development and
Deployment - Embedded Content - Films On Demand (infobase.com)
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