Author(s)

Anthony W. Reynolds

Abstract

In recent years, power plants have become larger and more complex. This growth in complexity has brought about the need to augment the degree of automatic control in the plants. There is also a requirement for interchangeable modes of operation. A high level of automation permits operations personnel to accomplish this required flexibility of operation. The major drawback of increased automation is that operations personnel become more removed from the control of the plant and tend to rely on alarm systems for information. With thousands of alarms and hundreds of pages of alarm response procedures, it is difficult for operations personnel to react when several alarms are energised. If the operations personnel response is delayed, equipment damage, loss of production or even

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