Maintenance Tools applied to Electric Generators to Improve Energy Efficiency and Power Quality of Thermoelectric Power Plants

Abstract

This paper presents a specific method to improve the reliability of the equipment and the quality of power supplied to the electrical systems with the frequency and voltage control of a thermoelectric plant, to guarantee a more stable system. The method has the novelty of combining Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) using only four pillars, with Electrical Predictive Maintenance based in failure analysis and diagnostic. It prevents voltage drops caused by excessive reactive consumption, thus guaranteeing the company a perfect functioning of its equipment and providing a longer life of them. The Maintenance Management Program (MMP) seeks to prevent failures from causing the equipment to be shut down from the electrical system, which means large financial losses, either by reducing billing or by paying fines to the regulatory agency, in addition to prejudice the reliability of the system. Using management tools, but applying only four TPM pillars, it was possible to achieve innovation in power plants with internal combustion engines. This study aims to provide maintenance with a more reliable process, through the implantation of measurement, control and diagnostic devices, thus allowing the management to reduce breakdown of plant equipment. Some results have been achieved after the implementation, such as reduction of annual maintenance cost, reduction of corrective maintenance, increase of MTBF (Mean Time between Failures) and reduction of MTTR (Mean Time to Repair) in all areas. Probabilistic models able to describe real processes in a more realistic way, and facilitate the optimization at maximum reliability or minimum costs are presented. Such results are reflected in more reliable and continual power generation.

A Comprehensive Review of Strategies and Approaches for Enhancing the Performance of Thermoelectric Module

“…This type of heat exchanger is more effective and has a lower thermal resistance (example thermal resistance of 0.108 K/W [125]) because the convection coefficient of the air flow is better than that of air. In general, the water-air heat exchanger is used where the heat flow rate is high or the heat flux is large, for example the cooling or waste heat harvest of a supercomputer chip or CPU [126,127], the waste heat recovery in power plants [128][129][130] or the waste gas treatment in engines [131][132][133][134][135].…”

Maintenance Management with Application of Computational Intelligence Generating a Decision Support System for the Load Dispatch in Power Plants

“…Oil analysis: The initial purpose of oil analysis of a lubricated assembly or a hydraulic system is to economize by optimizing the intervals between the exchanges. As the analyses carried out resulted in indicators that report on the wear of the lubricated components, the second objective of this process became defect control for predictive maintenance [12].…”

Lean Maintenance Applied to Improve Maintenance Efficiency in Thermoelectric Power Plants

“…Power plants consist of a set of sophisticated systems which must have the highest level of availability [5]. The obsolescence of these systems increases the risk of unavailability because they have a high degree of mechanical wear due to the high temperatures and chemicals products used for the production of electric energy [6].…”