Keeping the Lights on in the Middle of Pandemic

Based in North Yorkshire, England, Drax power plant has a capacity of 3,906 megawatts (MW) and produces around 14 terawatt-hours (TWh) of power a year, 96% using compressed wood pellets, a form of sustainably sourced biomass. The remainder is produced using coal, for which commercial operations come to an end in March 2021.

The boiler units went into operation in the 1970s and require ongoing monitoring and maintenance to prevent unplanned outages from erosion and corrosion damage. As well as surface protection solutions from IGS, the plant utilises continuous inspection systems that monitor the boiler tubes’ integrity and generate data to inform and validate the plant engineers’ metal wastage prevention strategies.

Boiler Maintenance Timeline – Boiler Waterwall and Superheater Protection
Colin Bateman, Director of Business Development EMEA, IGS, commented: “We started servicing this Major UK Power Plant in 2016 and have since been awarded a long-term contract for thermal spray applications within their boilers. Our capability to quickly mobilise our applications team and equipment, coupled with extensive experience, enable us to exceed client expectations in terms of shutdown schedules and solution reliability.” IGS have been applying High Velocity Thermal Spray Alloy Cladding on boiler waterwalls and Ceramic coatings on the superheater.

Boiler Unit 3 2020 Outage
The boilers at this power plant run on a four-year maintenance cycle. The outage for Unit 3, a biomass boiler burning proprietary wood pellets, was initially planned for February/March 2020. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the start of the outage was postponed to the end of August, with the IGS work on the Unit 3 boiler waterwall scheduled for October.

Preparation for the Outage
IGS had to adapt the mobilisation of the European crew to be in compliance with the Power plant and UK COVID regulations. Quarantine was not required in accordance with the UK Government’s exemptions for specialist technical workers for the power infrastructure. All the crew were tested prior to their arrival in the UK and negative results were confirmed before entry to the site. IGS Europe was the largest team coming in from outside of the UK.

Specialist Technical Workers
Workers with specialist technical skills required for essential or emergency works to ensure the continued safe and secure operations of generating stations, gas or electricity transmission or distribution networks, electricity interconnectors, gas terminals, or district or communal heat networks.

Colin added: “In addition, we have the IGS Pandemic Plan added to our mobilisation procedures. Special actions were taken for accommodation, site activity, social distancing, and keeping the team in small pods. We had 30+ people on-site, working 24 hours a day in shifts. Bubbles were maintained throughout the IGS team, ensuring on-the-job and off-the-job social distancing.”On location, COVID tests, monitoring, and temporary accommodation modules in a local leisure centre were set up.

Project Execution
The planned project start date was pushed back by two days due to delays with pressure part activities in the back end of the boiler (not in the furnace first pass where the IGS HVTS was applied). As a result, the IGS critical path was reduced from 10 to 8 days. Despite this IGS hit the new required customer schedule and completed the works with the application of the IGS HVTS system to 650 m2 within the new critical path dates.

The scope was completed on time with no hiccups in accordance with all requirements from the government and all companies involved in the outage, a large-scale project delivered on time and within budget. The IGS team has been commended for their professionalism and attention to detail.

Handling Issues during Project Delivery
Even a problematic compressor didn’t knock the IGS team off schedule! An IGS technician used his expertise, initiative, and knowledge to maintain the 3rd party equipment to keep the project on schedule.

In 2020, IGS is set to complete at least 273 projects, keeping essential infrastructure going by preventing corrosion, erosion, and fouling within power plants, refineries, chemical producers, pulp & paper, metals& mining, cement plants, and other facilities.

For more information about mission-critical asset maintenance and reliability projects, visit www.intergratedglobal.com