MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Apprion announced the completion of an industrial application site plan at the Dakota Gasification Company (DGC) facility in Beulah, N.D. Dakota Gasification Company is a for-profit subsidiary of Basin Electric Power Cooperative that owns and operates the Great Plains Synfuels Plant. The Synfuels Plant in Beulah is the only commercial-scale coal gasification plant in the United States that manufactures natural gas.
Eight years ago, the DGC Great Plains Synfuels Plant initiated a project to create a sustainable operation with a mission to keep synthetic natural gas production costs at a minimum and ensure sustainability. Dakota Gas partnered with Apprion ION Services to conduct an ION Site Plan to evaluate the current facility infrastructure and put together a strategic application and wireless plan that would help them meet their goal of a sustainable operation. The ION Services team spent 10 days at the DGC Beulah facility measuring and gathering data to determine the placement of RF transceivers and network devices that would comprise a facilitywide wireless infrastructure.
At the conclusion of the ION Site Plan, DGC Beulah received a 250-page strategic site report with the wireless and RF site assessment results, recommendations for detailed implementation planning and an extensive report mapping out the most efficient and cost-effective path for moving forward with various wireless applications to reach their sustainability and production cost goals at the Synfuels Plant.
“The ION Site Plan is the strategic first step for many larger projects. We are looking forward to the safety, security and productivity improvements that partnering with Apprion can provide our facility,” said Rod Wetsch, supervisor control systems at the Beulah facility. “In addition, these strategic application plans will allow the DGC Beulah facility to benchmark work processes with its industry peers in comparison to areas such as reliability, safety, environmental protection, work efficiency, business systems and security.”
With the ION Site Plan assessment complete, the next step to achieving Dakota Gas’s goal is Phase 1, which includes implementing a sitewide wireless infrastructure to support the first two industrial ION Applications: ION Location and ION Access Control. This sitewide infrastructure will include approximately 140 Apprion IONizers. IONizers are industrial field appliances, the backbone of the network integrating wireless and wired sensor network gateways to support all industrial applications within the plant.
The ION Location and ION Access Control applications include an integrated dashboard interface that will track all personnel and contractors equipped with the Apprion IONiteTM Wireless Personnel tags. Dakota Gas will equip approximately 1,000-plus plant personnel and contractors with the IONite tags (small, battery operated WiFi personnel tags). ION Location tracks and monitors employees and contractors via a map-based graphical interface and ION Access Control shows all personnel entering and exiting defined areas of a facility for the highest level of safety, security and accountability of all personnel.
For more information, contact Sarah Prinster at sarah.prinster@apprion.com or (650) 934-5727.
