Powerplants built over the past several decades are packed with instrumentation, transmitters, and computers. This extensive automation has allowed reduced staffing levels while introducing challenges for effectively analyzing and acting on degrading conditions that may occur long before alarm levels are reached. Many combined cycles use all, or portions of, remote monitoring and diagnostic (M&D)

Fairview incurred several plant trips following commissioning because of valves hanging up and/or key parameters being overlooked until it was too late for the Mark VIe control system to keep the unit in service. After a handful of failed starts, staff began to discuss how plant operation could be made more reliable and profitable. Most

Soon after commissioning, staff discovered that a single point of failure of the ammonia-injection control valve could create an emissions exceedance, limiting the plant’s response and output, as dictated by state environmental permitting. An hourly NOx exceedance was experienced less than one month after commissioning because of a faulty flowmeter indication. It limited the amount