Page 69 - Energize November 2021

TECHNICAL

What is required in power plant
maintenance?
Power plants require thorough, well-kept
maintenance protocols in order to stay safe
and continue regular operations.
In power plants there is often one
engineer devoted to maintenance, the
power plant maintenance engineer. His
role is to supervise all maintenance-related
jobs at the plant and ensure that they are
being done according to relevant industry
standards.

Complex systems for power plant
maintenance
At a power plant, keeping up with
maintenance is incredibly complex and
challenging, but also crucial for safety. Control room in old power station
If a problem at the plant does not get
addressed quickly it could develop into a including power plant maintenance, A power plant maintenance engineer
life-threatening issue. But there is no way refining, fabrication and manufacturing. oversees:
that personnel onsite can keep track of the • CMMS (Computerized Maintenance • CMMS and SCADA coordination and
status of each component and asset the Management System): Since there are integration
plant uses from one minute to the next. so many different things to keep track of • Maintaining documentation about the
This is why power plants use at power plants, engineers in charge of plant’s maintenance procedures
computerized systems to track the real-time maintenance use a CMMS to help them • Technical support in anything
status of their equipment, down to small track, share, and archive maintenance maintenance-related at the plant
details, so that nothing slips between the schedules and reporting. • Developing and making sure personnel
cracks. adhere to preventive maintenance
It’s common for a plant’s CMMS to be schedules
Here are the two primary systems used in integrated with its SCADA systems so that • Ensuring that inspections and
power plant maintenance: certain dates or events will lead to automatic maintenance are being conducted
• SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data work order creation for recurring items, such in compliance with relevant industry
Acquisition): SCADA is a complex industrial as preventive maintenance or inspections. standards
control system that uses computers and This integration is also often used for sharing • Liaising between those at the plant
network data communications to monitor information about security-related issues doing the work (i.e., engineers and
plant and machinery conditions. SCADA like fault detection, alarms, and abnormal other plant workers), management,
is used in several industrial processes, conditions detected within the plant. and outside parties like regulators
who require insight into the plant’s
maintenance procedures such as
preparing reporting and sharing it with
stakeholders at the plant.

Three ways drones can help improve
power plant maintenance
Inspections are an important part of
maintenance at any power plant. Routine
inspections help ensure that all the assets
used in a plant’s processes are in good
working order and uncover possible
problems long before they develop into
issues that could endanger personnel.
One of the most difficult types of
inspections that must be conducted
regularly at a power plant are inspections of
the inside of an asset, like a tank or a boiler.
Inside a power station cooling tower Conducting these indoor inspections

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