Energy industry
Fluid Eye® Trend enables proactive maintenance
Case Kauttua Power Plant, Adven Oy
Real-time fluid and equipment performance monitoring enables proactive maintenance, secures long-term operational reliability and reduces operational costs.
STARTING POINT
In the summer of 2018 Kauttua Power plant suffered a small water leak in their turbine lubrication system. Also, in the following summer 2019, the turbine lubrication oil was coming to near end of its estimated technical service time. The equipment had suffered technical failures during the previous operational season 2018-2019 like clutch jams which caused almost full revision and production break. The turbine included traditional in-line and off-line oil cleaning equipment. In the revision it was observed that internal parts of turbine were extremely contaminated.
These incidents triggered an idea that these sudden failure phenomena should be addressed more real-time. Thus, Fluid Intelligence’s fluid performance monitoring service Fluid Eye® Trend was taken in use. Fluid Eye® Trend provides a real-time visibility to fluid performance development and for example water leaks are noticed as they happen. This enables a very early problem identification and let maintenance teams to take sound and well-planned actions well in advance.
SOLUTION
Fluid Intelligence proposed to the customer combined actions that will extend the service life of the oil and secure its serviceability in the future without an oil change. The actions related to the general condition of the oil and the purity of the oil. Because the system had already Fluid Eye® Trend in place, the effectiveness of the procedures could be monitored in real-time to ensure that the situation was constantly under control during oil re-conditioning activities.
During the next maintenance outage in the summer of 2020, the equipment was opened and examined in more detail. It was found that the oil system inside the equipment was cleaner than ever and no problems were found in the oil system. The maintenance outage was on schedule and no additional work was required. The maintenance outage was also significantly fast and efficient.
RESULTS
The laboratory analysis confirmed that the customer's oil condition was at an excellent level and on a par with new oil in terms of composition and performance values. Also, minor operational hardware malfunctions were reduced. Fluid Eye® Trend confirms that the development of oil condition has improved and remains at a good level. Mikko Oksanen from Fluid Intelligence's Professional Services emphasizes that the results are predictable and comparable to other similar projects.
Fluid Eye® Trend powered fluid performance monitoring combined with proactive maintenance and right tools generated at least -40-50% less costs in the 2019-2020 operation season compared to the previous operation season.
Miikka Nurmi, Kauttua power plant’s Operation Manager, commented: “Applying proactive fluid performance monitoring and oil-reconditioning has been simple and cost-effective. It has left time to focus more on longer-term critical factors and has been extremely cost-effective”.
CUSTOMER BENEFITS
Enable more precise maintenance planning
Enable proactive and early interference to problematic phenomena
More holistic approach to equipment performance
Less waste oil streams
Reduced total operational costs