Condition Monitoring as a Critical Decision Strategy for Power Plants Maintenance
Condition monitoring of electrical power plant items can ensure significant savings in both maintenance and operational costs, hence increase availability and reliability. Condition monitoring can be used as a maintenance management strategy. In doing this, the right and appropriate monitoring techniques with the required experience to optimize maintenance is a necessity. Hence, reliable performance of power plant can be achieved through diligence and dedicated attention to a broad range of activities that encompass life cycle of the plants and equipment. The first phase of these activities entails engineering specification and manufacturing through installation, the second covers from startup through operation, mechanical performance monitoring, and maintenance. Condition monitoring is a procedure available to the maintenance engineer, whereby various diagnostic techniques are used to obtain advanced warning of the need to repair plant, and to determine the nature of the repair. The method is playing an increasingly important role in maintenance strategy mainly because of the need to reduce costs, increase safety, availability, and reliability. Therefore, this paper considers the techniques, costs, strategies, and future use of condition monitoring in power plant maintenance.
Keywords: Condition monitoring, Diagnostic, Maintenance, Performance, Power plants, Strategic decision.
