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Panama: a 300 MW peaker above 96% available.
Dispatched far more often than designed, the plant was wearing hot-gas-path parts faster than budgeted. We rebuilt maintenance around the real duty cycle.
Above 96% available through the following peak season.
% available, or more
Situation
A 300 MW simple-cycle plant was being dispatched far more often than its original design intent, several starts a day instead of a handful a month, and the extra thermal cycling was chewing through hot-gas-path parts faster than the maintenance budget assumed.
What we did
We modelled the plant’s actual starts-to-hours ratio against the OEM’s maintenance factors and rebuilt the parts and outage schedule around the real duty cycle instead of the original baseload assumptions. We also introduced a fast-start checklist that cut thermal stress on the rotor during cold starts without adding time to full load.
What changed
The plant avoided an unplanned major overhaul that the original maintenance plan would have triggered within the year, and its 300 MW of capacity came in above 96% available through the following peak season.