Power generation sectors are a crucial part of the progress and development of society. Energy has become the lifeblood of an operational society. From residential homeowners to commercial businesses, all need energy to operate their daily activities.

However, what happens when the power generation sector faces a breakdown? A study on monetary losses due to infrastructure disruption estimated that electricity outages have caused losses of $82 billion for underdeveloped and developing countries, suggesting even greater losses for developed countries. That’s why power generation sectors must consider effective predictive maintenance strategies to prevent them from happening.

An optimal way is via preventive maintenance condition monitoring. Preventive maintenance technologies can help power generation sectors; in this blog, let’s look at how condition monitoring in machines helps the power generation sector.

Why is Predictive Maintenance Condition Monitoring Needed?

Preventive maintenance refers to the scheduled maintenance activities that help prevent future critical machinery failure. As the power sector has several complex machines operating in unison to generate electricity, preventative Maintenance is crucial to ensure machines are protected from unexpected breakdowns.

One approach that can assist with providing preventive maintenance is condition monitoring. It allows businesses to predict machine health and safety by integrating technology such as sensors to measure internal vibrations and software to analyze them. Preventive maintenance condition-based monitoring is crucial for energy sectors as it is the cost-effective and efficient solution they seek. Here’s what it has to offer:

1. Reduced Maintenance Cost:

Machine maintenance makes up a significant portion of the overall operating costs of power-generating machines. Preventive maintenance solutions allow these sectors to get a better idea of critical machinery, which can help with understanding the right course of action to take from them. As it helps detect issues before they begin, it reduces costs significantly. Energy sectors can save significant funds through preventive maintenance, which can be utilized elsewhere to improve sector performance.

2. Regulatory Shifts:

Regulatory authorities often roll out sustainability directives for non-renewable sectors, which require funds for investing in sustainability technology. Condition-based monitoring in machines helps reduce costs by preventing machine breakdown. This can lead to the creation of funds for sustainability technology investing.

3. Reduced Safety Hazards:

Not only do condition monitoring systems assess machines’ health, but they also provide an overview regarding their safety. The breakdown of critical machinery can create an unsafe working environment for workers. A report indicated that in 2020 alone, 340 workers died due to hazardous working conditions. Preventive maintenance prevents machine breakdown, helping keep employees’ working conditions safe.

4. Assists with Aging Infrastructure:

The infrastructure of most power generation facilities is around five decades old. Aging infrastructure translates to higher maintenance costs, as well as high-risk failure. Predictive maintenance condition monitoring can help lower them.

How Does Condition Monitoring of Machines Improve Power Plants?

Power plants are highly complex as they deploy critical machinery, including gas and steam turbines, generators, pumps, and transformers, to produce energy. They have to consistently operate to produce electricity, so they have a high risk of failure. That’s why power plants must adopt condition monitoring systems to avoid these power breakdowns. They can minimize maintenance costs by 40%. Here’s how these systems positively impact the power generation industry:

1. Mitigate Cost of Lost Production:

There are several methods through which condition monitoring assesses machine health. Machine vibration monitoring systems are the most prominent. These systems utilize vibration sensors to detect vibration and other parameters, which are then analyzed through specialized software to provide insight into the machine’s health. As it can detect issues in real time without having to shut down critical machinery, it can lead to reduced costs.

2. Reduces Cost of Root Cause Discovery:

Traditional Maintenance requires experts to handle critical machinery breakdowns and failures through inspections to learn the root cause. This can lead to extensive hours spent on inspection for faults. However, preventive maintenance solutions, such as condition monitoring based on vibration patterns, can accurately pinpoint where issues can occur and help resolve them. This led to a reduction of unnecessary downtimes and improved performance.

3. Reduce Operating Expenses:

Condition monitoring eliminates unnecessary Maintenance and downtimes by helping employers learn about the current status of critical machinery. Through it, they can form contingencies and schedule repairs to ensure the machine works optimally. As it reduces unnecessary Maintenance, it also saves funds spent on them. This helps improve power generation sector efficiency.

How Industrial Vibration Monitoring Fail-Proofs Power Plants?

Preventive maintenance condition monitoring systems help detect failures before they even occur and pinpoint the probable cause that could lead to failure. This is done via industrial vibration monitoring systems. They use vibration sensor technology to evaluate the machine’s condition. Machine vibration monitoring systems can help with evaluating diverse sets of critical machinery. Here are the critical machineries these systems can detect anomalies from:

• Pumping Systems failure
• Generators failure
• Transformers failure
• Turbine degradation

Final Note:

In conclusion, preventive maintenance condition monitoring is a crucial aspect to consider for the power generation sector. It can help detect issues before they occur. Through it, the energy sector can boost its performance by reducing maintenance costs. Energy sectors must include preventive maintenance solutions to ensure the sector runs optimally.

FAQs

What is Predictive Maintenance in the Energy Sector?

Preventive maintenance refers to scheduled maintenance activities that help prevent the failure of critical machinery in the future.

Why is Predictive Maintenance of Renewable Energy Technology Components Important?

Preventive maintenance can optimize operations, improve machine efficiency, and help prevent unwanted downtime.

What is the Role of Predictive Maintenance?

Predictive Maintenance helps optimize and improve machine operation by predicting and preventing critical machine failure.

Why is Predictive Maintenance Better Than Traditional Maintenance?

Predictive Maintenance is better than traditional Maintenance as it can detect issues in real-time before they even occur. This prevents unplanned downtime and helps manage operating costs.

Paul Grady