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Inside the article a nice contrast can be found: >> “Things are going to break,” she said. “We have an aging fleet that’s being run harder than it’s ever been
by oneplane 4y ago
Inside the article a nice contrast can be found:
>> “Things are going to break,” she said. “We have an aging fleet that’s being run harder than it’s ever been run.”
>> Also See: Texas Confident Stressed Grid Will Hold Up Amid Summer Heat
Seems to me that one statement is rooted in experience, science and measurable facts, while the other is nonsense.
- djbusby 4y agoAlso, they are running 100% for longer periods - so they skip some maintenance. That's not good for systems like this. The breakage will likely be bigger and more exciting.
- landemva 4y ago>> That's not good for systems like this. Do you have insider maintenance knowledge or is this a hunch? How many fluid samples have you sent to the lab? Big machines are thermally designed to run at 100%. Oil and lube can be stretched for the proper economic incentive.
- djbusby 4y agoWell the article mentions it. My numerous tours of power plants. And 20 years of stories from my uncle (now retired) who was an engineer on power generation (mostly hydroelectric, a little nuclear). And a bit of my own experiences with mechanical systems.
- landemva 4y agoI read that in the article quoting from the trade association person. My experience is big plants can run at 100% for a long time, if during past downtime the PM was completed and not just penciled-in. At this scale, the PM is recorded and signed. I guess most or all of the plants should do okay. Anyway, too late for worry to be useful!
- baldeagle 4y agoThe Gov. of Texas called for PMs this spring to be cut short due to an early heat wave. That means that some plants lost 1/3 of their planned PM time to be back online.
- thefz 4y ago12 years experience in hydro:it does not matter, if it has moving parts, it will require maintenance. You need to stop the machines to measure critical parts are in good shape. You need to change consumables too. And some controls are by law every X hours of operation.
- jagged-chisel 4y ago> And some controls are by law every X hours of operation. In Texas?
- oneplane 4y agoPeople forget: you must stop machines at a time of your choosing because if you find out it won't start up again it better be at a time where it doesn't cause huge problems to have to fix it.
- albrewer 4y agoIn a snappy aphorism: Schedule your downtime or your equipment will do it for you.
- hombre_fatal 4y agoProcrastination delegates decisions from you to circumstance.
- 800xl 4y agoEven worse, it seems a majority of Texans are not concerned at all or even want the grid to fail for politically motivated reasons. There is also a mentality that the government shouldn’t be telling us to raise our thermostats especially after the blackouts during the state wide freezing event last year.
- kortilla 4y ago>> “Things are going to break,” she said. “We have an aging fleet that’s being run harder than it’s ever been run.” The conclusion that something will break just because it’s been run harder than ever is not based on “science and measurable facts”. Either the plants an grid are within their performance envelopes or they aren’t. These things are over provisioned precisely for these scenarios. A meaningful statement would have been based on how close to design capacity they are at. Previous usage is completely irrelevant.
- ikr678 4y agoIt's not that they are being run at 110% of designed standards, it's that are being 'run harder' by skipping maintenance windows to keep uptime. Things will break. It's clear a lot of people in this thread have no exposure to operations.
- Krisjohn 4y agoIf you don't schedule maintenance your equipment will schedule it for you.