Contact Energy, NZ – condition-based maintenance review
Client: Contact Energy
Location: Clyde, New Zealand
Date: July 2007 – November 2007
Reviewing hydropower asset management and maintenance programs to improve maintenance practices.
Background
Contact Energy is one of New Zealand’s largest listed companies and provides electricity and natural gas to more than half a million customers around the country. The project objective was to plan and optimise maintenance effort and expenditure to improve plant reliability and availability within the constraints of maintenance budgets.
The primary scope of this project was to review Contact Energy’s condition-based maintenance program for its hydro generation at Clyde Power Station. A secondary task was to review Contact Energy’s asset management plan and plant performance at Clyde Power Station.
Solution
To implement the review, the work was broken into discrete steps which provided a clear description of the methodology, and enabled Contact Energy to track progress of the review against scheduled milestones.
The main steps were an asset management plan review, plant performance review, and a condition-based maintenance (CBM) review.
The asset management plan review compared Contact Energy’s current asset management plan against best practice with comments on its adequacy and identification of areas for improvement.
The plant performance review undertook a review of existing plant performance and comparison against best practice for similar hydro plants.
The CBM review provided a detailed assessment of the development, management and operation of the CBM program. Specifically this looked at the background, development, implementation and management of the CBM program, the level of understanding of the CBM program, and the commitment and priority given to the CBM program.
Outcome
Feedback was provided to Contact Energy detailing the findings of the audit evaluation, comparing against industry best practice, and offering recommendations for further development of the asset management plan, CBM program, and personnel. This allowed Contact Energy to benchmark its maintenance activities and identify room for improvement. Entura provided material to enable Contact Energy to further improve its programs to optimise maintenance effort and expenditure to improve plant reliability and availability.
