Who is trusted with Australia’s largest coal-fired electricity power station?
Protech PAS was recently contracted to execute the annual unit outage at Eraring Power Station.
Eraring Power Station is an electricity power station with capacity of 2,880 MW located west of Lake Macquarie in New South Wales.
Not only is it Australia’s largest power station but is Origin Energy’s only coal-fired power station and one of the more emissions-efficient black coal-fired power stations in the country.
Electricity generated at the station is transmitted through high voltage transmission lines. Units 1 and 2 are connected to a 330kV transmission line while Units 3 and 4 are connected to a 500kV transmission line.
Protech PAS provided four High Voltage technicians over a five week period to ensure the reliability of the Unit 3 Transformers. This was conducted through the testing and maintenance of the following:
- 390 MVA 23/530KV Generator Transformers.
- 45 MVA 23/11KV Auxiliary Unit Transformers.
- 15 MVA 11/3.3KV Unit Transformers.
This outage required significant maintenance and testing which included:
- OLTC maintenance
- New transformer gaskets
- HV bushing replacement
- Transformer protection device replacement and calibration
- Rust prevention
Electrical Testing
- Winding resistance
- Tap changer (DRM)
- Excitation current
- Partial discharge
- Dielectric dissipation factor
- Sweep frequency response
The two major underlying goals of this outage were to: 1. Successfully meet our target of zero preventable incidents; and 2. Meet or exceed our customer’s expectations.
To achieve these goals, Protech PAS promotes individual accountability, engagement, continuous improvement, ownership and responsibility for safety.
Ultimately, we want to make sure that all our employees and subcontractors go home at the end of the day in the same way they arrived and that is scathe free.
The quality of the work performed allows our client to continue to produce continuous, reliable power until the next scheduled maintenance period.