K-Power's Challenge

The Korean power market has become competitive and challenging with strict environmental, health and safety standards, and an independent regulatory agency enforcing rules for competitive pricing and overseeing distribution. To meet the challenge and gain a competitive edge, K-Power entered into a long term service agreement with GE to provide operations and maintenance for the entire plant, and a parts and repair contract specifically for the gas turbines.

K-Power has established an ambitious set of goals for reliability, efficiency and quality. To achieve these goals K-Power and GE's operations and maintenance team are working to implement a two-pronged solution that combines:

• Condition-based Maintenance - a proactive maintenance strategy that reduces the likelihood of unexpected failures, and avoids unnecessary maintenance that needlessly disrupts plant operations.
• Performance Optimization - a control solution that continually calculates optimal setpoints and then applies closed loop control to achieve optimal operating conditions.

Continuous Dynamic Monitoring (CDM)

For Dry Low NOx (DLN) gas turbine combustion systems, reliability depends heavily on properly managing combustion dynamics. A newly installed CDM system from GE enables K-Power to monitor and track changes in combustion system dynamics through changes in the gas turbines including ambient conditions, fuel gas heating values (due to LNG shipment sources), and equipment normal wear. When an adverse condition is detected, K-Power can respond quickly and effectively, whether it calls for a remote DLN tune or a shutdown.

System 1

A catastrophic failure is costly in terms of equipment damage, but even more so from commercial losses related to the unplanned shutdown. The ability to predict catastrophic failures before they occur is essential. At K-Power, System 1 Condition Monitoring and Diagnostic software platform integrates data gathered from on-line monitoring systems and field engineers with portable data collectors, and analyzes the data to predict failures and alert operators before failures occur.

On-site Monitoring (OSM)

While on-site operations and maintenance personnel are well-equipped and capable, on occasion subtle changes may escape detection, such as when equipment trends deviate from baseline conditions at a very slow rate. To fill the gap, K-Power employs OSM, a remote monitoring a diagnostics service provided by GE's Monitoring and Diagnostic Center in Atlanta Georgia. Through OSM, gas turbine data is fed back to the center for early detection, helping the on-site staff to troubleshoot.

Performance Optimization through EfficiencyMap™ and CLOC®

Fuel represents the single largest cost of operating the power plant; getting the most from every gram of gas is absolutely essential in a competitive environment. Without an online system to continuously monitor equipment efficiencies, millions of dollars in fuel costs could be wasted each year. Well aware of this, K-Power is working jointly with GE to install and leverage a performance optimization system consisting of EfficiencyMap (eMAP) and Closed Loop Optimization Control (CLOC).

eMAP software continuously collects thermodynamic performance data and calculates optimal operating setpoints at a rate that keeps pace with highly dynamic processes. CLOC functions as a supervisory controller. It moves the plant in real-time to the optimal operating point calculated continuously by the eMAP's Optimizer module, while ensuring operational demands and regulatory constraints (such as NOx limits) are dynamically and continuously met. By continuously adjusting in real-time at a rate that human operators cannot match, CLOC closes the gap between steady-state optimization and plant dynamics to maintain consistent plant operations and reduce operator workload.

Reaping the Benefits

Even before commercial operation commenced, K-Power was already benefiting from GE's services. expertise, helping K-Power through the initial construction stage, and continuing to prove valuable as commercial operation is underway.

Today K-Power, rated at 1074MW (15 degrees C) is reliably delivering clean power to Korea, and is setting the standard by which other Korean IPPs measure their performance. K-Power is the first power plant in Korea to import its gas supply directly into the country without relying on government agencies, and is the first IPP that does not rely on Power Purchase Agreements (PPA), but rather its own ability to produce electricity reliably, economically and cleanly.