Taipower's Talin Coal Power Plant finds VFDS™ is the Answer.
The Talin Thermal Power Plant in Kaohsiung Installs Video Image Detection Technology from GKB to Cover Its Coal Processing Mills.
Challenges
The coal mills run 24 hours a day and are critical to the smooth functioning of the entire power plant. Fire detection systems were necessary in coal mills at Taipower's Kaohsiung coal power plant.If mills break down the flow of coal into the power plant stops until the mills are repaired, meaning breakdowns are very costly both in financial and strategic terms.
Temperature-sensitive fire detection was impossible because the mills operate at very high temperature levels, meaning false alarms occur.
Smoke detectors do not function because the mills were located partially outside and smoke does not accumulate.
Traditional flame detection does not work because flame is always visible within the coal mills as part of their normal functioning.
Reflections from sunshine cause too many false alarms using other, less advanced visual image detection systems.
Solution
Taipower, working with a key GKB system integration partner, decided to install two VFDS™ systems at two of its coal mill processing sites. 8 fixed cameras were installed at each coal processing site, each controlled by 1 VFDS system™. 6 cameras covered 6 individual mills at each site, with a further 2 cameras providing coverage of the areas from above. This offered the central control room a secondary means of remotely verifying a fire if an alarm was sounded.
The cameras were programmed to ignore the safe flames and smoke which were visible within the mills as part of their normal operation, but pick up any smoke and flames which escaped. Furthermore, the advanced VFDS™ software is capable of differentiating between sunlight and flame, meaning false alarms due to sunshine do not occur.
Result
aipower now have a reliable solution to the challenging fire detection needs at the critical Kaohsiung coal power station. Due to the stability and convenience of the system, plans to extend their VFDS™ system to cover other areas of the plant have been confirmed and work is underway.
Taipower's Talin thermal power plant in Kaohsiung provides the national power grid with 2,400 MW of power, 6% of Taiwan's total installed power production capacity.
Type of ownership: Government
Date first commissioned:1969
Source of coal: Imported from China (48%),Indonesia (37%)and Australia (13%) to adjacent Kaohsiung port, and from there by conveyor to power plant.