The pressure on power producers to supply reliable electricity is unyielding. Forced outages, which usually are caused by unexpected component failure or systemic problems, can prove very costly to both bottom line and reputation. To reduce the frequency and duration of unscheduled outages, many gencos are implementing comprehensive predictive maintenance (PdM) programs. Such is the case at Calpine Corp. (San Jose, Calif.), America’s largest independent power producer (IPP).
Calpine was the first IPP to integrate regional operations of its power plants in the U.S., where it has almost 27,000 MW of capacity fueled by natural gas and geothermal energy. By pooling the output of its plants, the company can supply customers with customized packages of electricity generated by specific shares of fuels.
For the past six years, Calpine has been applying the same integrated approach to PdM. Only a handful of its plants routinely practiced PdM techniques back in 2000, and each developed and implemented its own program for handling equipment failures. As a result, there was no uniform PdM technology or strategy and no sharing of best practices and successes.
After reviewing the options and potential strategies for meeting availability, reliability, and profitability goals, Calpine’s senior management decided to begin developing and implementing a fleetwide PdM program. “The program’s main goal was to reduce forced deratings and outages, both of which we consider catastrophic events,” explained Kevin Nordenstrom, the company’s PdM engineering manager. “Our customers depend on our reliability. To minimize blackouts and brownouts, we needed a uniform PdM program that the majority of our plants could easily adopt.”
Among the program’s key design imperatives were user-friendly interfaces, compatibility and interoperability across a variety of enterprise computing and operating systems, fleetwide integration of PdM data, and the ability to share information with maintenance application suites—such as Calpine’s Maximo computerized maintenance management system. After considering how well the products of several maintenance solutions providers met these criteria, as well as their future development directions, Calpine chose Entek Emonitor Enterprise software from Rockwell Automation Inc. (Milwaukee, Wis.) as the foundation of the uniform PdM program it sought to create.
The program, which began its rollout to individual plants in late 2000, comprised a variety of proactive tools and techniques, including condition-monitoring hardware and software. Implementing common procedures and practices among its U.S. plants gives plant and corporate managers alike the ability to share experiences and documented successes. Through the sharing of lessons learned, the fleet’s efficiency, availability, and cost savings can be maximized.
“In 2000, no two of our plants managed maintenance in the same way,” recalled Nordenstrom. “For example, at plants that were dispatched most of the time, some critical equipment was allowed to run to failure because too much revenue would have been lost by taking the equipment off-line for repair or replacement. As a company, we wanted to move away from this reactive approach by viewing maintenance as a strategic, profit-boosting, performance-enhancing tool.”
The capacious database of the Emonitor Enterprise system serves as a central repository for all information gathered from Calpine power plants using the PdM program. The system allows Nordenstrom and plant engineers and technicians to access any site’s records. Doing so enables them to analyze equipment lifecycle trends and to determine if specific types or models of equipment are experiencing common failures or failing repeatedly at the same plant.
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