Power Generation Equipment Testing

An industry analysis on how T&M equipment play critical roles in installing, improving efficiency and extending the life of power plant assets

The T&M equipment plays vital role in checking the health of the critical power plant equipment. The early detection before its failure or any major deviation in the measurement value of critical electrical or any other process parameter can save catastrophic failures of an equipment and can avoid the loss in terms of cost as well as availability. Therefore, the life expectancy of any power plant can be extended by using the right T&M instruments effectively.

T&M equipment plays an important role in maintaining the life expectancy of power plant assets, right from the installation to operation and maintenance. It typically starts from the Factory Acceptance Test (FAT). The customers or users have become more quality conscious, and hence, do not want the equipment to fail. Utilities in their tenders are asking for longer warranty periods, eventually forcing manufacturers and suppliers to realise the importance of the quality of their products.

However Imteyaz Siddiqui, Regional Area Manager – South Asia & GCC, ISA Advance Instruments (I) Pvt Ltd states, “The quality of test equipment has become very important. Users, now a days, are ready to invest more money in better and more reliable testing equipment than buying the cheapest one available in the market. They have also realised that the cheapest equipment may not be the cheapest solution in the longer run. Some customers are now calculating the total cost of acquisition over a period of 3 to 5 years, and they have realised that a good-quality test kit that may be costly at the time of purchase turns down to be cost effective in 3 to 5 years compared with the cheapest kit.”

Imteyaz also adds, “Monitoring of electrical assets, especially the high-cost items like HV and EHV equipment, is becoming increasingly important. Continuous monitoring provides data in real time, and we can decide to repair or replace the unit in time and avoid any catastrophe based on the trending of certain parameters.”

According to Parag Yelegaonkar, Business Development Manager, Testo India Pvt Ltd, “The power plant is invariably a continuous operation setup and relatively an expensive asset of any power utility / public or private sectors. During the installation phase, the T&M equipment are very much required and used in setting up benchmark parameters for various process tags. This benchmark parameters recorded can be used to check and confirm the safe and efficient operation of the power plants throughout its life cycle span. One can as well derive the optimum efficiency of each power plant equipment and record the measured parameter values by using T&M equipment for future use looking in to consistency in optimum operation and for all kinds of trouble shooting jobs.”

Further Parag informs, about the enhancement of life of any power plant equipment, it goes without saying that periodic checks are very important. A small lapse in preventive and predictive maintenance can lead to highly unsafe conditions and thus results in loss of huge revenue and system breakdown. One of the most critical operations that governs the entire economics of any country is dependent on “power generation”. Hence it is the most critical asset for any country irrespective of whether it influences a private or public sector organisation.

Testo’s most advanced offering
Testo offers various T&M instruments like electrical parameters, thermal imagers, flue gas analysers, Wi-Fi data loggers, digital manifold, SMART probes and digital gauges in this power domain. The instruments offered by Testo are not the traditional one, but they are now more user-friendly, wireless as far as sensor and display is concerned, they are IoT enabled plus more rugged, precise and accurate.

ISA Advance’s most advanced offering
Imteyaz offers, “We have comprehensive solution for the operation and maintenance of power plants. We have equipment like Automatic Capacitance and Tan Delta measurement system in our ISA product portfolio which can measure and monitor the trend of insulation degradation in large motors and generators.”

He informs, “We also have equipment to measure and monitor the Partial Discharges amongst our TECHIMP product portfolio. We also have continuous monitoring solution for rotating machines which are the main components of a power plant. Continuous monitoring provides data in real time, and we can make a decision to repair or replace the unit in time and avoid any catastrophe based on the trending of certain parameters.

We have continuous monitoring solution for rotating machines which are the main components of a power plant.’
Imteyaz Siddiqui, Regional Area Manager – South Asia & GCC, ISA Advance Instruments (I) Pvt Ltd

Our latest solution to the industry is new Thermal Imagers with smartphone integration designed to deliver networked thermography
Parag Yelegaonkar, Business Development Manager, Testo India Pvt Ltd