Every day, power plants are tasked with producing enough power to keep homes and businesses running. Remote power plants can be particularly difficult because they’re often located in areas where it’s hard to find qualified workers. These plants tend to fail at an alarmingly high rate due to system failures. Luckily there are methods you can do to help prevent this from happening. If successful, it will help you save time and money as well as improve efficiency in the long run.
Read more to know about the four tips you can apply to ensure your system is running at peak performance.
1. Maintain Your Power Equipment And Systems
You should maintain your equipment and system regularly to ensure they’re running properly. Inspect your entire systems such as generators, switches, surge suppressors, and other equipment for signs of wear or damage every few months. This will allow you to catch any problems before they cause real issues. These concerns may include downtimes, thus costing a lot of lost revenue per hour.
You could also schedule preventative maintenance at least once a year. This ensures everything is repaired correctly the first time around. These repairs may include fixing broken parts and replacing frayed wire insulation that’s about to fail. A power plant asset management software will help to keep your system running at top performance.
Also, ensure all system components are secure in their foundations, so there is no risk of movement over time. This can cause damage or disconnections during use. Thus, check your inverter’s health for signs of failure or damage, especially if it has more than six years of use.
This is an essential task because the last thing you want to deal with during an emergency is downtime due to something as simple and preventable as failing equipment. Some ways to check your inverter include taking measurements, checking system parameters like pressure and temperature, etc.
2. Install A Battery Backup System
Not only will this keep you up and running during an outage, but it can also help prevent future failures. For example, your system was experiencing frequent inverter failures every time there’s a storm. If you have a battery backup in place, it will keep the power on until the storm passes. Thus, you don’t lose any data or equipment due to this issue.
3. Keep The Plant Clean And Free Of Debris
The most common cause of failure in remote power plants is the weather on systems and equipment over time. A buildup of dust can insulate wires enough to reduce voltage output and corrode metal components that are essential for making electricity. This will result in costly downtime or even complete system failures. Cleaning your facilities, like the air intake and exhaust ports, could keep everything running at peak performance.
On the other hand, some ways you can keep your facility free of debris include ensuring walkways surrounding equipment are clear. This is so workers can access everything they need without stumbling around hazardous areas. You must be sure to remove any rocks or other items lying around since these could fall onto machinery if there’s an earthquake or storm and severely damage it.
Also, you must regularly check for rust or corrosion on metal equipment. This is especially important if you live in a particularly wet area since this can cause severe damage with time.
4. Have A Plan In Case Of Emergencies
If an emergency does occur, having a plan in place will guarantee you’re ready to handle it quickly and appropriately. Having spare parts on hand could make repairs immediately with no delays. This is important for ensuring uninterrupted power and avoiding further damage or accidents caused by faulty equipment.
Also, train all your staff members on safely operating any machinery involved and what procedures to take if anything goes wrong. This will ensure that workers can act quickly and correctly in an emergency. Thus, they don’t need too much time figuring out how things work, which could cost valuable minutes.
Another plan includes having a backup power source ready just in case your main one fails for any reason. Even if your generator is still working, a backup system will keep you from losing power again during the downtime of switching to a new system.
Conclusion
As you’ve read, there are several ways to prevent system failures for remote power plants. You must understand how these systems work and what causes them to fail so you can protect your customers from blackouts.
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