Significance
The power plants’ availability and reliability have arisen from managing productions in strict compliance with operating procedures, inclusion of the quality maintenance according to the specified standards and the supply chain management to consistently provide good quality fuel for raw materials in the production line.
Banpu Power has operated its business with a power generation base from the CHP plants in China. The power generated is supplied to the public through the government transmission system. Meanwhile, the steam and hot water as well as cooling water are sold to the industrial sector and commercial as well as residential areas. The peak demand for steam and hot water is in the winter during November to March every year, while the highest demand for cooling water is in the summer during May to September each year.
Therefore, the availability and reliability of the power plant as well as the efficiency of planned maintenance outages are the core indicators to which Banpu Power has adhered in order to build confidences and create the most sustainable benefits for customers. The criteria used for supervision, surveillance, inspection and monitoring as well as power plants’ performance analysis include the availability factor, the heat rate, the planned outage factor (POF), the unplanned outage factor (UOF), for example.
Management Approach
Availability and reliability of the power plants have arisen from managing productions in strict compliance with the operating procedures, inclusive of the quality maintenance according to the specified standards and the supply chain management to consistently provide sound quality fuel for raw materials in the production line.
In order to manage the power plants’ productions to fully comply with the operating procedures, BPP has applied the quality, occupational health, safety and environmental management system standards to all of its CHP plants. It has also promoted the innovation adoption, in particular the digital technology which can be widely applied to various parameters’ measurements in the production process. Then, the information gained will be applied for creating benefits of production availability and stability.
Banpu Power has communicated its production and machinery maintenance plans to customers in advance in order to create effective mutual working. The annual maintenance outage is one of the key activities to efficiently keep the machines in good conditions and last long. As a result, the power plants are able to operate continuously, meeting the customers’ needs as the plan set.
The CHP plants in China will have a maintenance outage during summer so that they can run continuously until winter as customers have maximum demand for energy. As a result, the maintenance outages for CHP plants will be based on a 3- years medium- term plan and an annual operational plan in order to prepare the machineries requiring maintenances and efficiency improvement in advance. More importantly, the maintenance for each power plant will not be operated at the same time since these power plants have to distribute steam to the industrial customers even during the maintenance period carried out during the summer season.
The CHP plants in China are scheduled for minor maintenances every year, taking 10- 20 days per time, while the major maintenances are operated every two years with 30-45 days each time. The power plants’ maintenance period is varied depending on the items determined by manufacturers and is also based on the inspections of machinery working-conditions which have been deteriorated as well. Each maintenance must be completed before entering to the winter season to ensure that the power plants continuously have the maximum availability potential.
Performance
- Availability Factor (AF) was 95.05%
- Forced Outage Factor (FOF) was 4.87%
