Wind farm system excels at remote monitoring and control
New ethernet technology is being utilised by a wind power generating company to better maintain and control their installations. The company is an innovator in wind technology and a driving force in the development of the wind power industry, with installations all over the world. The customer has developed numerous "wind farm" sites and relies on the benefits of efficient and reliable networks bring to management and control of the installations. Individual projects can range in scale from a few windmills, to hundreds of windmills, and can spread out over long distances. For long distance monitoring, centralised control and harsh environment operating capability, the company needs the most reliable network to support its...

Fatal explosion at US power plant
The U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) is deploying a seven-person team to the site of a fatal explosion at the Kleen Energy Plant in Middletown, Connecticut. The team is expected on site midday on the 8th February. CSB lead investigator Don Holmstrom said: "The CSB’s investigative team will examine the activities that were ongoing at the time of this accident, including any gas purging, as indicated by initial media reports."...

The conversion of biomass into fuel ethanol
TMO renewables has created a new process of converting biomass into fuel ethanol, which has won the national Carbon Trust Innovation Award in the ‘Transport’ category. CEO Hamish Curran collected the award on 26th November. HazardEx interviewed Hamish about the details of this new process....

Safely running motors and low voltage AC drives in dusty environments
To ensure safety, the use of electric motors and low voltage AC drives in areas with combustible dust is regulated by the ATEX directives; these environments can be just as hazardous as atmospheres with gas.

Automation solution for new power plant in Greece
ABB has recently won an order from turnkey power plant contractor Rodax to design, engineer, supply and commission a complete distributed control system (DCS) solution for a new 427-megawatt, gas-fired thermal power plant.

Ultra compact Industrial PC with RAID system
The C6930 control cabinet PC from Beckhoff combines everything a cutting-edge Industrial PC requires in a compact aluminum housing: a 3½-inch Beckhoff Motherboard designed for Intel Core Duo or Core 2 Duo, a wide range of PC interfaces, up to three Ethernet ports, e.g. for EtherCAT-based controllers and optional fieldbus interfaces for conventional bus systems. The C6930 offers high data security through an integrated RAID system for mirroring hard disks.

Call for legal duty on company directors' responsibility
The Health and Safety Executive's board will have to decide whether or not to ask the Government to create a legal duty on company directors to protect the health and safety of their employees, following the first reading of a Private Members’ Bill introduced by Backbench Labour MP Frank Doran. The Bill suggests amendments to the Health and Safety at Work Act by placing a positive duty on directors to ensure health and safety in their organisations.