Why take risks in plant maintenance?

Although the importance and benefits of vibration monitoring are understood and generally accepted by industry, there have been a number of recent incidents that act as a stark reminder of its true value. Take, for example, the fire at Didcot B power station in October, 2014.

The fire, which broke out in one of the cooling towers, required 25 fire engines and 100 firefighters to tackle it at its height. The damage was so great that even now, over one month on, the power station is operating at only three quarters of its full power capacity, while the unit that was most affected is only producing half of its normal 700MW capacity.

As Didcot B has demonstrated, the potential cost of poor maintenance or monitoring can be significant. Taking the power station offline is estimated to have reduced the total UK peak energy supply by at least 1% and, just as importantly, the rebuilding costs for the damaged cooling towers are likely to cost several million pounds.

By comparison, installing a simple but effective condition monitoring system can cost only a few thousand pounds per cooling tower. This will detect problems before they occur and, as a bonus, provide a wealth of data that can be used for longer term plant management.

So, the question that should be asked is not ‘what will condition monitoring cost’, but ‘what will it cost not to do it?’