Technico-economic modelling of maintenance cost for hydroelectric turbine runners

EasyChair Preprint no. 486

Abstract

Large utilities need to optimize the investment made to maintain their assets. For a utility like Hydro-Québec (37 GW) an important part of those investments are made to maintain their hydroelectric facilities. To minimize the maintenance cost, technico-economic model enabling the propagation of uncertainty associated with the degradation processes of a given component seems essential. Therefore, for Francis hydroelectric turbine runners, we developed two technico-economic models: one for crack propagation and one for cavitation. Since these are the main degradation mechanisms leading to failure of Francis runners, they enable us to study the effect of maintenance strategies on the maintenance cost of these components. The model has been created using VME, an asset management software developed by EDF R&D (Électricité de France). VME uses Monte-Carlo simulations to generate stochastic failure dates and obtains probabilistic indicators of the net present value of a given management strategy. We will use a study case based on a Hydro-Québec (Québec, Canada) facility to illustrate the importance of the proper assessment of current and expected long-term reliability on maintenance cost.

The paper will be structured as follows. First, an overview of the modelling strategy will be presented. Then, we will have a closer look on how VME, the tool used for Monte-Carlo simulations, derive its results. Finally, we will present a study case and discuss the results obtained in terms of the sensitivity to the reliability assessment uncertainties.

Keyphrases: Asset Management, Hydroelectric Turbines, Maintenance, Monte Carlo simulation, Net Present Value, Reliability

@Booklet{EasyChair:486,
  author = {Thibaud Lamothe and Michel Blain and Martin Gagnon and Jérôme Lonchampt and Antoine Tahan},
  title = {Technico-economic modelling of maintenance cost for hydroelectric turbine runners},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint no. 486},
  doi = {10.29007/gz11},
  year = {EasyChair, 2018}}