Georgia Power, Plant Yates, USA
Calibrating for plant performance.

Southern Company is a superregional energy company with nearly 39,000 megawatts of electric generating capacity in the southeast United States. It is one of the largest producers of electricity in the United States. Southern Company supplies energy to a 120,000 square-mile service territory spanning most of Georgia and Alabama, southeastern Mississippi, and the panhandle region of Florida. FORTUNE magazine has named Southern Company “the most admired” electric and gas utility in America for the last three years. Southern Company is currently ranked number 178 on the latest FORTUNE 500 listing of the largest U. S. corporations. Southern Company reported earnings of $1.47 billion in 2003. The company has approximately 26,000 employees.

Southern Company is the parent firm of Georgia Power. One of the generating plants is Georgia Power’s Plant Yates. Units 1 through 5 at Plant Yates are some of Georgia Power’s oldest fossil-fuel power plants. The plant has seven generating units, with a total capacity of 1,250 megawatts. When Yates was completed in 1952, it was the largest steam generating plant in Georgia. Over the years, Plant Yates has been maintained to increase reliability, sustain efficiency and keep its operations compatible with increasingly strict environmental standards.

The situation

The Instruments and Controls depar tment is responsible for maintaining and calibrating all instrumentation at Plant Yates, including transmitters and switches. Jeff Cason is a Senior Instruments and Controls Technician at Georgia Power’s Plant Yates.

Calibration of process instruments is considered essential at Plant Yates. “Proper calibration ensures the best possible plant performance, increases efficiency, and reduces risk of problems”, Jeff Cason states. “It provides safety from potential hazards due to undesirable operating conditions”, Jeff continues.

The main objectives achieved through calibration are increased performance, reliability, efficiency, and safety. Transmitters, switches, gauges, transducers, frequency devices and pulse counters, among other things, are calibrated at Plant Yates.

The solution and main benefits

“We calibrate control instrumentation on a yearly basis, and indication instruments every eighteen to twentyfour months” Jeff Cason explains.

At Plant Yates, they utilize Beamex® MC5 Multifunction Calibrators, vacuum calibration pumps, both high and low-pressure calibration pumps and Beamex® calibration software; the results have been very satisfying. “Beamex equipment was chosen because the MC5 offered the most options as far as module ranges, devices that could be calibrated and put into the database, HART® communications, and database functionality”, Jeff Cason reveals.

“The Beamex® MC5 is very versatile, powerful, and compact. All-in-one functionality means no need to carry several different gauges, manometers, and ammeter into the field”, Jeff Cason describes. “Also, the accuracy of the MC5 modules is very good”, Jeff continues. In addition, the calibration software has proven to be very efficient. “The software makes it easy to send a list of instruments to be calibrated to the MC5 and then to work from that list, without needing to do paperwork out in the field”, Jeff Cason points out.

Using Beamex’s calibration equipment has provided many benefits such as smooth, effortless calibrations. “Easy upload of calibrations to a PC and easyto- read calibration certificates show the accuracy of the instrument”, Jeff Cason explains the benefits of the Beamex calibration system. “It also allows the ability to search for instruments that are due for calibration”, Jeff adds.

“Utilizing the Beamex calibration system has reduced the amount of equipment and paperwork that has to be taken out in the field”, Jeff Cason concludes.