System Reliability Evaluation of Dadin Kowa Hydro Power Plant

Abstract

Dadin Kowa hydro power plant (DKHPP) is connected to national grid via 132 bus and fed to Gombe and Biu. Like many generating station, they are faced with interruption and consistent outages. In DKHPP there is the problem of dropping of generated power between the design minimum and fault in cooling shaft seal of the turbine. Furthermore people in the neighboring local government are not enjoying continuous electricity supply it's very important for DKHPP utilities to properly manage and utilizes their existing facilities to maintain or enhance the system reliability. To address this, two methods was adopted and compared; Markov model and Energy index of reliability in the reliability evaluation of DKHPP which has generating capacity of 40 MW. For this research work the operational data regarding failure and maintenance, time taken for repairs and analysis of all parts of generating unit of the power plant for period of 2021-2022 is considered. The results revealed that using Markov model the reliability is 0.9919 for unit one and 0.9909 for unit two. So also the availability is 0.9894 for unit one and 09893 for unit two. The reliability using Energy index of reliability method is 0.9393 with LOLE of 16.899h/year which is far ahead of 4.8h/y of international utility practice. The plant has a unit derate factor of 1.164% which shows that if the plant is not properly maintained it could lead to degradation. Finally though the plant is reliable but daily seasonal and annual energy management system is recommended to enhance availability.