Risk assessment in the hydropower sector
We have developed and applied a method aimed at programming and scheduling the maintenance activities of civil and hydraulic works and infrastructures as well as the mechanical and electromechanical components of an hydropower plant, based on the risk assessment (FMEA).
The aim is to provide a general overview of the plant with a focus on the management issues and on the level of risk through the identification of the most critical components of the plant. The application of the method leads to the identification of the intervention priorities in order to reduce the management costs and to optimize the hydropower production.
Target audience
Electricity companies
Hydropower plants operators
Goal
The reduction of the management costs and the optimization of the hydropower plan activities are achieved with the Risk Assessment serivce throught:
Assessment and quantification of risks which could affect the operation of the plant
Check of effectiveness and efficiency of the exiting controls
Detailed planning of maintenance activites to be carried out on the plant
Improvement of the reliability and availability of the plant
Comprehensive management of works and equipment of the plant
Elaboration of a functional overview of the plant
Safety management of the infrastructures and plants under concession
Collaborative relationship with the insurance company for the claims treatment
Management of procedures concering the companies responsibilities
The service consists of 3 phases
FMEA Method
The FMEA method – Failure Mode and Effects Analysis – is widely used to analyze the potential failure mode of a process, a product or a system: for each identified failure mode, the potential effects, the causes and the controls are evaluated and quantified.
By means of the risk index – RPN Risk Priority Number – it is possible to identify the actions to be taken for each analyzed component with their respective priorities,in order to increase the efficiency, safety and reliability of the entire production process.
The application of FMEA method.
Thanks to our multi-year experience, we apply the FMEA method to the hydropower plants, with the aim of identifying the priorities of the maintenance activities for plant components and equipment: the FMEA analysis will be applied for each main component of plant considering the effects of each potential failure mode on the component itself and on the interconnected ones.
RPN
RPN is the index for the identification of the intervention priorities and it is based on 3 factors:
- Severity: How severe are the effects?
- Detectability: How easily can the damage be detected?
- Occurrence: How often does it happen?
RPN Alert’s thresholds
The pre-established alert thresholds of the RPN values identify the risk levels: negligible, acceptable and high risk.
After the identification of the potential failure modes which can affect a plant’s component, their effects, causes and controls, we evaluate the corrective actions to reduce the risk according to the intervention priorities based on the RPN value: the higher the RPN value, ther greater the need to carry out corrective actions to lower the value of one or more of the three factors.
Report
At the end of the analysis we elaborate a report with a general overview about the maintenance status of each plant, including the recommended actions to be carried out with their respective degrees of urgency, the monitoring, the investigations and the plant’s surveys to be performed with the relative frequency.
The report is the summary of the individual FMEA sheets of each analyzed component. Furthermore, we will provide the guidelines for the relationship with the insurance companies for the claims treatment.
Choose our innovation
With more than 40 years’ experience in the hydropower sector, we can count on a know-how that allows us to apply the FMEA method to the works and to the equipment of an hydropower plant. You will receive a comprehensive overview of your plant allowing you to identify the intervention priorities, to reduce management costs and to optimize the hydropower production.
Choose the innovation, choose Frosio Next!
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