The project has now concluded with full-scale testing at two power stations in Spain and Portugal respectively. The collaboration partners have been SINTEF Energy Research, the French IT company Sema Group, the Spanish power company Iberdrola, and the Portuguese power company EDP.
The REMAFEX project ran for three years and had a total budget of NOK 58.5 million, half of which was funded by the EU's Esprit programme. The Norwegian share totalled NOK nine million. Of this, ABB and nine of Norway's leading power producers contributed around half.
The two power plants in Spain and Portugal must now decide for themselves whether to continue using the installed functions. Work is also under way to establish a follow-up to the REMAFEX project in a European context, in addition to installations at one or more Norwegian power companies.
The aim of REMAFEX was to reduce unnecessary preventive maintenance, as well as to reduce the need for unplanned corrective maintenance. This is intended to lead to reduced costs and losses associated with maintenance, faults and production stoppages, and thereby to increased profitability.
REMAFEX was based on open standards and interacts with existing systems for, among other things, condition monitoring, diagnostics and maintenance management. The main elements comprised a distributed IT platform and a total of approximately 15 maintenance-related functions. The IT platform included, among other things, user interfaces, databases, generic functions, data communication and interfaces to other systems, such as SCADA.
SINTEF Energy Research was responsible for, among other things, developing and commissioning a function for monitoring the insulation properties of the stator insulation and a function that monitors the operating mechanism of the circuit breakers on the high-voltage side of the power station's transformer.
Continuous measurement of partial discharges in the stator insulation with trend plotting provides information about condition changes that indicate incipient faults. The function gives a warning when further inspection or maintenance action is needed.
Partners
Norwegian stakeholders: ABB Kraft, BKK Produksjon, Oslo Energi Produksjon, Hydro Energi, Sira-Kvina Kraftselskap, Statkraft, Nordkraft, Vest-Agder Energiverk, EnergiNorge
Project partners: Sema Group (France), EDP (Portugal), Iberdrola (Spain), SINTEF Energy