Keeping the lights on

Is modernization a pure maintenance issue or even reasonable option to increase the performance of a plant?

The main key driver for brownfield projects and modernizations of the equipment is rising fuel cost. All customers want to lower down their OPEX cost by extracting more energy from available fuel. Over the years, due to aging of the old equipment, the performance decreases significantly. In addition to this, new equipment built with latest technology offers best efficiency. As a result of both these factors, customers will get around 7 to 10 % more power output with the new equipment.

What is challenging in a brownfield project? 

One of the main challenges is considerable engineering which is required before we make a bid. Potential customers are asked to unveil details of their existing infrastructure. In addition to this, another challenge is to complete the installation work in a very timely constraint manner because the shut down of the plant will be for limited period only.

What are your experiences with such challenging projects?

Siemens Energy’s Industrial Steam Turbines team is very well positioned to meet these challenges since we have large technical know-how which we have gathered from our experience of working on various design platforms for industrial steam turbines over the past years. Moreover, we have highly competent Customer Order Engineering and R&D teams who helps us to understand customer’s problems and come out with most innovative and efficient solutions.

Can you tell us some examples what exactly can be improved in a brownfield project?

In brownfield projects we can enhance and improve the power output, the fuel consumption, startup times. Also variations in process steam flow, the electric load fluctuations, and governing-control-protection system are very useful upgrades. Furthermore, we combine it with major or minor overhauls