Biogas Power Plant MaintenanceIn other sections we have concentrated our discussion on simple farm and rural biogas systems. In this section we concentrate on large highly technically integrated biogas power plant maintenance, and on both the maintenance of the digester systems and the power unit which we consider all to be part of the ‘plant’. Why do we do it? Good biogas power plant maintenance should go beyond simply keeping the system working. Power plant maintenance should be about optimizing economics and plant reliability. Down time looses the operator generating time which cannot be recouped, and poor reliability will often hit biogas plant operators by reducing the unit rate payable by the electricity company, which will usually be based upon the ‘load factor’. Power plant maintenance is usually carried out in-house on most biogas plants, with full size installations usually employing a staff which will include at least one mechanical engineer, or electrical engineer backed up by one or more technicians, a foreman and labour gang, and qualified technicians or outsourced term contract arrangements, for certain specialist plant areas (eg power unit).  Staff can be recruited with experience in
operating and maintaining plants from allied trades such
as workers from the fossil and nuclear power, pulp and
paper, chemical, independent power producers and even
general manufacturing industry, if similar plant skills
were needed. The range of activities the power plant maintenance operatives undertake will depend upon the operating company’s policy. Which may range from only daily inspection and immediate minor diagnosis duties being done in-house, to full servicing, maintenance and repair including undertaking full plant maintenance on-site. A quick web search will identify the main outsourcing companies such as Shanahan Engineering with Irish, US, UK and Italian offices, and PPM services (Power Plant Maintenance) US based. These companies offer a service which varies from full long term service contracts, where they provide complete management, supervision and craft labour for the maintenance of the full plant, to the provision of technical advisors alone for the supervision of power plant maintenance, including gas turbine maintenance, steam turbine maintenance, generator maintenance, boiler inspection and HRSG inspection and some will do this world wide. They will also carry out the major over hauling jobs of steam & gas turbine generators and all associated auxiliary machinery of thermal power plants & combined cycle to power plants. Such complete dismantle and rebuild jobs will commonly be needed at an interval according to design life of major components, but will usually be on a 10 or 15 year cycle, and may be beyond what in-house labour can achieve at normal plant staffing levels. With operating equipment at a power plant, if sounds or vibration of the equipment or the gauges and test equipment indicate a problem or degradation, it is important that timely actions are taken to correct the deficiency or defect. We recommend that the maintenance personnel who maintain the equipment at biogas power plants must go through craft-specific training to qualify to perform the plant maintenance. Power Plant Planned Maintenance Team RolesEngineers at the largest power plants are often responsible for specific systems at the plant and manage the work done (preventive maintenance, repairs, and modifications) on their system. On biogas plants which are small in comparison with gas or coal stations, the site may only be able to support one engineer who will need to be conversant with all the site systems. The fitter, technician and or foreman installs, adjusts, inspects, services and repairs a variety of mechanical equipment and mechanical parts of electrical machinery utilized in an biogas power station including electric and thermal generation equipment. The plant engineer supervises a program of preventive maintenance of the electrical and/or mechanical equipment, structures and buildings for reliable power station operation. To do this he/she makes regular inspections and tests of facilities to determine the overall condition of the power plant. The operational staff must learn and perform in the various areas of the Power Plant including the typical maintenance of the digester and power plant equipment, and the control, data acquisition, and monitoring systems. They must clean the mechanical equipment; apply and repair protective coatings to various equipment surfaces, change lubricants and gaskets, operate hand and power tools, tightens or loosens joints and fittings, assist the mechanics in the assembly or disassembly of Power Plant equipment. Other roles may include assisting welders, journeyman and operation personnel as assigned, and on assignment make minor repairs without direct supervision, handle and place in store all plant materials, maintain records and reports as required. The most important management task will be to ensure that all operatives work together with the Plant Engineer as a well co-ordinated team to identify and implement plant improvement projects, to enhance plant performance, and reduce corrective maintenance activities.
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