Load preservation systems at facilities utilizing co-generation for the real time protection of critical loads during utility outages

Many industrial facilities utilize co-generation as a means of reducing the costs of energy purchases while providing needed resources, such as steam, to their production process. On large power systems where only a portion of the facilities electrical load is generated by the co-generation process there is a risk that one or more power sources may be lost without warning. Such a loss can create instability in the power system and often results a complete power loss in the entire facility. To reduce this risk, a system is needed that senses the pending loss of utility power or co-generation source and initiate the shedding of non-essential loads in real time. Such a system prevents the available sources from being overloaded and lost, which can create very expensive interruptions to the production process. The load preservation system (LPS) utilizes PC/Web based monitoring and control systems and industrial network technologies to network and synchronize monitoring and control components over a large facility. These tools enable operators to select the sequence and priority of less essential loads to be shed during an outage and provide engineers with information and causal analysis of power system interruptions. The addition of satellite time referenced sequence of events recording provides accurate event time stamping to enhance engineers abilities to understand cascading power system events.