Plant assessment of an existing power plant can be compared with human health examination. Utilities need to get, regularly over the HPPs’ life time, information about the condition of main systems and key components to take management decision about necessary / profitable investments in order to:
- Ensure plant safety
- Ensure the long-term value of the HPP
- Improve the operating results (increase revenues, reduce O&M costs, …)
Targets for plant assessment:
- Give an overview of current condition of all systems
- Clear identification of weak points
- Proposal for specific inspections to identify the problem and necessary measures
- Rough overview of necessary repair / modernization scope
To meet these targets the assessment should follow a clear structured procedure. ANDRITZ HYDRO is applying the Three Phase Approach for elaboration of a systematic approach / methodology enabling:
- to define the scope of assessment
- to systemize the necessary data collection
- to rate systems / components in terms of:
- risk
- residual life
- improvement potential
- Cover the main systems / components
- The ratings shall be based on statistical data, experience data and/or simple calculations
- Enable a multidisciplinary data collection / inspection on-site
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