4 Tips To Prevent System Failures At Remote Power Plants

Every day, power plants are tasked with producing enough power to keep homes and businesses running. Remote power plants can be particularly difficult because they’re often located in areas where it’s hard to find qualified workers. These plants tend to fail at an alarmingly high rate due to system failures. Luckily there are methods you can do to help prevent this from happening.  If successful, it will help you save time and money as well as improve efficiency in the long run.

Read more to know about the four tips you can apply to ensure your system is running at peak performance.

Tips To Prevent System Failures At Remote Power Plants

1. Maintain Your Power Equipment And Systems

You should maintain your equipment and system regularly to ensure they’re running properly. Inspect your entire systems such as generators, switches, surge suppressors, and other equipment for signs of wear or damage every few months. This will allow you to catch any problems before they cause real issues.  These concerns may include downtimes, thus costing a lot of lost revenue per hour.

You could also schedule preventative maintenance at least once a year. This ensures everything is repaired correctly the first time around. These repairs may include fixing broken parts and replacing frayed wire insulation that’s about to fail. A power plant asset management software will help to keep your system running at top performance.

Also, ensure all system components are secure in their foundations, so there is no risk of movement over time. This can cause damage or disconnections during use.  Thus, check your inverter’s health for signs of failure or damage, especially if it has more than six years of use.

This is an essential task because the last thing you want to deal with during an emergency is downtime due to something as simple and preventable as failing equipment. Some ways to check your inverter include taking measurements, checking system parameters like pressure and temperature, etc.

2. Install A Battery Backup System

Not only will this keep you up and running during an outage, but it can also help prevent future failures. For example, your system was experiencing frequent inverter failures every time there’s a storm. If you have a battery backup in place, it will keep the power on until the storm passes.  Thus, you don’t lose any data or equipment due to this issue.

3. Keep The Plant Clean And Free Of Debris

The most common cause of failure in remote power plants is the weather on systems and equipment over time. A buildup of dust can insulate wires enough to reduce voltage output and corrode metal components that are essential for making electricity. This will result in costly downtime or even complete system failures.  Cleaning your facilities, like the air intake and exhaust ports, could keep everything running at peak performance.

On the other hand, some ways you can keep your facility free of debris include ensuring walkways surrounding equipment are clear.  This is so workers can access everything they need without stumbling around hazardous areas. You must be sure to remove any rocks or other items lying around since these could fall onto machinery if there’s an earthquake or storm and severely damage it.

Also, you must regularly check for rust or corrosion on metal equipment. This is especially important if you live in a particularly wet area since this can cause severe damage with time.

4. Have A Plan In Case Of Emergencies

If an emergency does occur, having a plan in place will guarantee you’re ready to handle it quickly and appropriately. Having spare parts on hand could make repairs immediately with no delays. This is important for ensuring uninterrupted power and avoiding further damage or accidents caused by faulty equipment.

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Also, train all your staff members on safely operating any machinery involved and what procedures to take if anything goes wrong. This will ensure that workers can act quickly and correctly in an emergency. Thus, they don’t need too much time figuring out how things work, which could cost valuable minutes.

Another plan includes having a backup power source ready just in case your main one fails for any reason. Even if your generator is still working, a backup system will keep you from losing power again during the downtime of switching to a new system.

Conclusion

As you’ve read, there are several ways to prevent system failures for remote power plants. You must understand how these systems work and what causes them to fail so you can protect your customers from blackouts.

How to Make a Construction Site Safe?

Site safety should be your number one priority when setting up a construction site. If you are starting a new project and need some guidance on how to make your site safety compliant, we have rounded up a quick guide to create a safety compliant construction site in line with the Health and Safety Executive’s regulations.

Site rules and induction

It is essential that all construction personnel are briefed and trained in the site-specific safety rules and partake in a site safety induction.

Site rules should be clear and easy to understand for all personnel. If you have employees on site whose mother tongue is not English, you must provide the site rules in other languages to make them clear for these employees.

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Every construction site employee must be given an appropriate site induction, including any tours of the site, training videos and practical training exercises applicable to your construction site.

Traffic management

For large sites that will have vehicles moving about them, it is absolutely vital that you have a traffic management system in place to ensure the safety of people on site.

This should include clearly demarcated routes for vehicles and for employees on foot. Warning systems for vehicles moving about on site and specific parking spaces for site vehicles.

Protective equipment

As a construction site employer, you must provide your employees with the correct personal protective equipment. This could include hard hats and high-visibility clothing to ensure they are noticeable on site.

You should also be providing first aid supplies, a registered first aider and other emergency equipment such as eye washes should an accident occur on site. Check out this article to know about safety tips when working with steel.

In addition, it is now important that you provide the proper personal protective equipment to mitigate the risks to your employees from airborne viruses. This could include masks, visors, and hand sanitizers or sanitizing sprays to kill germs.

Waste management

Undoubtedly, your construction site will generate waste and debris that will need to be managed properly. Domestic waste from site offices and staff areas should be separated for recycling and disposed of under the local council’s guidance.

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Chemical and industrial waste should be handled efficiently too. It is important that you have a waste management contract in place with a reputable provider before you start work on site.

For more information on how to keep your site safety compliant, visit the Health and Safety Executive website for the construction industry.

How Can Launder Covers Help Water Environments

The conservation of water, its proper flow, and assured safety for home or industrial use can be achieved by reusing water through renewable energy. However, algae control is challenging even for modern wastewater treatment plants. One of the best ways of resolving this problem is by installing launder covers.

Aside from this concern, water ecosystems also face other issues, the most notable being water and wastewater treatment facilities. So how can launder covers be of any help in such a scenario?

The discussion that follows will serve as a useful reference point when choosing the right launder cover for your water and wastewater treatment facility. Let’s get up to speed on how launder covers can help water environments.

Prevent Algae Growth

Algae growth has a proven tendency of developing in water and wastewater treatment facilities. It causes changes in the hydraulic dynamics of clarifiers, which leads to obstruction of design features found in weir configurations. Once launder covers are installed, they provide an attractive and extremely low maintenance structure to help eliminate algae growth problems.

Also, larger algae can dislodge and move around in plants that utilize ultraviolet disinfection technology. If the floating algae ends up covering UV bulbs, this may cause bulb failure and render UV bulbs ineffective, which are unfortunately very expensive to replace.

That’s why the installation of reliable launder covers, like IEC Covers, is recommended to help prevent algae growth in water and wastewater treatment plants. This would save money on repairs and UV bulb replacement at the same time.

Control Gas And Odor Emissions

Launder covers are useful in providing a continuous protective environment above the effluent stream. They can contain odor and gas to prevent environmental pollution and protect the health of workers in the area.

A reliable and corrosion-free launder cover system prevents direct sunlight from reaching the elevated growth areas of the weir and clarifier launder. Since launder covers serve as odor control hoods, they trap noxious gases that are generated during wastewater treatment processes.

Provide Essential Value To Water Environments

Custom designed launder covers can be placed in rectangular and round tanks, providing essential value for different water and wastewater operations. This page will teach you everything about wastewater treatment.

Here are the advantages of installing launder covers in water environments:

  • Continuous inhibition of algae growth
  • Lightweight and cost-effective solution for water problems
  • Operable access for safety inspections and preventive maintenance

Maintain Weir Structural Integrity And Function

Eliminating direct sunlight inhibits algae growth, which also enhances the flow consistency of weir and reduces the need for maintenance. Launder covers shield other openings where access is normally required, but for safety reasons they need to be covered when not being used.

You can request custom-designed launder covers according to your preferred requirements. Custom-designed launder covers can be used in both round and rectangular clarifiers, as well as channels, sludge thickeners, and other openings.

Acts As Debris Barrier

Plastic bags, leaves, dead tree branches, and other windblown debris often lands in water environments. Launder covers help prevent such waste materials from ending up in your water and wastewater plant.

Also, aside from preventing debris from entering the water stream, launder covers can also be helpful in containing localized odor emissions if present in the weir area (effluent trough). Choosing fiberglass launder covers helps seal water environments in order to control odor.

Protect Launder From Weather

Strong winds, storms, snow, or heavy rainfall may introduce debris to water environments. Installing launder covers helps protect them against debris and damage caused by natural disasters. Choosing high-quality launder covers will ensure that they can withstand harsh weather conditions while protecting water and wastewater treatment plants.

Here’s a quick guide for when you are choosing launder covers:

  • NSF/ANSI Certified: Choose launder covers that are NSF or ANSI 61 certified. Also, opt for launder covers made of AWWA F101 compliant materials. NSF/ANSI Standard 61 or NSF-61 refers to a national standard relating to water treatment, establishing strict requirements and controls for equipment coming in contact with potable water or other products supporting the potable water production.
  • Quality Make: Select launder covers with superior strength and corrosion resistance that use FRP components to ensure long and maintenance-free service life. Choose clarifier launder covers that utilize fiberglass and stainless steel hardware, specifically made for municipal or industrial wastewater treatment purposes. These launder covers are easy to use, ensuring smooth operation and meeting the required NPDES effluent levels of Total Suspended Solids or TSS.
  • ISO Certified: Choose an ISO 9001 certified launder cover for manufacturing facilities.

Conclusion

Launder covers provide great protection against debris, harsh weather conditions, and direct sunlight. They further help protect weir structures, prevent algae growth, and are handy in avoiding the potential damage that algae can do to UV bulbs in treatment facilities using UV disinfection technology.

Choosing high-quality launder covers would mean having long-term peace of mind that your water quality is preserved and wastewater treatment operations can function smoothly.