Predictive maintenance for hydropower plants safety Examples of effectiveness of a penstock pressure monitoring system

摘要

In 2008 EDF launched an important penstock pressure monitoring program now keeping around 250 penstocks under observation. The aim of the project is to detect any hazardous level of pressure in order to carry out appropriate action plan, but also to detect drifts of the operating conditions before they become dangerous for the facilities. A specific 3-level organization has been set up and processing or calculation tools were developed to enhance that predictive maintenance orientation. Today the program has fully proved its effectiveness with numerous cases where some predictive maintenance actions could be carried out thanks to an early detection of operating anomalies.