Case Study: Salt River Project achieves 44% fewer configured alarms and faster plant start-ups with AVEVA

America’s Third-Largest Public Power Utility Quells Nuisance Alarms

Salt River Project, the nation’s third-largest public power utility, faced frequent alarm floods at its Navajo and Santan generating stations that overwhelmed operators and threatened safe, profitable operation—at times producing thousands of alarms in hours and requiring a dedicated alarm operator. To address this, Salt River Project worked with AVEVA using AVEVA’s SimSci Distributed Control System (I/A Series) and SimSci Dynamic Simulation to modernize alarm management and control-room operations.

AVEVA implemented a three-phase alarm management program—baseline assessment, alarm rationalization and reprioritization, HMI improvements, and simulation-based validation—reprogramming alarm routing and priorities in the I/A Series DCS. The results included a dramatic reduction in alarm frequency, Santan unit startups that now take one operator less than two hours (versus two operators up to four hours), and a 44% reduction in configured alarms on Navajo Unit 1; the SimSci simulator is also used to train operators and validate further optimizations.

Salt River Project

Ron Bewsey

I&E supervisor and I/A administrator