Škoda Praha

In 2015 ŠKODA PRAHA (ŠP) succeeded in the tender for Owner´s engineer services for - Voitsberg III coal fire power plant relocation with capacity of 330 MW. Voitsberg power plant was relocated from Austria to the new location nearby the city of Can in Turkey (to be referred to as Can II power plant). Mr. Martin Spilka has been nominated as the project manager because of his extensive experiences gained during the execution of Egemer combined cycle power plant (CCGT) project constructed for CEZ Group in the first half of this decade.

Project of such a scope is quite unique as there were only minor CCGT relocation projects performed in the past, those projects were smaller, less complex and had minor technical difficulties in comparison with Can II power plant. ŠP needed a strong team of highly qualified and experienced engineers, enriching the project tasks with a specific approach, overcoming some engineering habits and routines from EPC and EPCM projects. A technical knowledge of Mr. Jan Lávička and his many years vast experiences acquired during his participation in the power plant construction projects abroad and in the Czech Republic has been a clear choice for the most convenient candidate on the position of the chief engineer.

It was a great challenge for ŠP engineering team to thoroughly review the as built design of Voitsberg III power plant and to make necessary design updates and improvements for relocated power plant in such a way to maximize utilization of existing plant components. This task required detailed engineering analyses of the function systems and components of existing power plant as well as their technical evaluation (suitability) for a new location.

To minimize the investment costs and justify the relocation a concept of maximal utilization of the existing components has been applied. The technical analyses confirmed that the following components will fit to the relocated power plant: main boiler, machine room, most of the critical and associated piping lines of boiler and machine room, feed water pumps, cooling water pumps, condensate pumps, electrostatic precipitator, coal handling components (incl. coal mills), ash and slag handling components etc.

Power plant relocation and its modification to local conditions was challenging for many reasons. There was a different coal quality with lower heat rate value, higher ash and water content as well as higher sulfur content compared to coal in Voitsberg area. Another challenging issue was quite different climatic conditions (especially higher ambient temperatures in summer season), higher cooling water temperature and very high seismic risk in the new area.

ŠP has performed a detail engineering analysis and processed a complex revision of the basic design adjusted to suit the relocated power plant to the local conditions. The basic design also included brand new technological systems mandatory to commission the power plant. ŠP´s task was to coordinate following engineering design process executed by customer´s subcontractors until the completion of assembly and preparation works for commissioning.

Customer´s satisfaction with successfully completed ŠP engineering services has been positively shown by customer’s awarding of the OE services contract for commissioning of the power plant with achievement of maximum power plant stable load operation. The contract included elaboration of the commissioning documentation, operating staff training, site commissioning activities and support of the customer during plant operation troubleshooting.

ŠP has elaborated all documentation necessary for the power plant commissioning such as first power plant start up sequence, operating manuals for individual plant systems and training manuals. ŠP has also reviewed steam blow and chemical cleaning design documentation executed by the subcontractors of the customer.

ŠP has started commissioning activities after the customer has completed steam blow and chemical cleaning operations. ŠP has gradually mobilized 25 commissioning specialists as all commissioning activities – each commissioning operation have been performed in close cooperation with the future plant operators. The operating staff training has been taken in parallel with commissioning activities. Site commissioning activities have been managed by ŠP external technician Mr. Martin Chovanec who is an experienced site manager in similar foreign projects. His managerial skills have created friendly and cooperative working environment for local operating staff and ŠP commissioning team. ŠP has involved in this project many experienced commissioning specialists including a head of commissioning department Mr. Siegfried Pehnelt, who has participated in all coal fired power plant rehabilitation projects in CEZ Group.

ŠP has performed DCS algorithms adjustments during plant systems commissioning works and focused on maximally stable power generation. There were performed coal mills alignments, boiler adjustments together with associated boiler parameters measurement, combustion air set up and coal dosing in order to maximize plant power output and minimize unburned content with respect of low NOx burning conditions principles, setting of flue gas fans, setting of electrostatic precipitators, setting of boiler feed water pumps, setting of main cooling water pumps and condensate pumps, verification of steam turbine parameters, etc. ŠP commissioning support has enabled the customer to achieve 280 MW power plant output that permitted the customer to apply Turkish Ministry of energy for issuing of the commercial power plant license that was obtained on 1^st August 2018. Since then the customer sold generated power to the market and thus improved the economy and the profitability of the project.

The customer has recognized large technical knowledge of ŠP in power plant construction and commissioning field and ordered ŠP to perform further engineering works – optimization of the operation to achieve higher stable power plant output. ŠP has proposed several improvements which have been implemented by the customer in 3 weeks scheduled outage. All modifications and adjustments proposed by ŠP has been completed and the power plant has been successfully re-started. The power plant has been running uninterruptedly for 3 weeks period when a stable power plant output 333 MW was achieved on 30.3.2019.

This significant achievement has successfully accomplished 4 years of OE services for the Turkish customer. The Can II project is an exquisite reference of ŠKODA PRAHA that proves that the company has experienced and qualified in-house capacity to successfully complete technically demanding projects which will be highly demanded in the future.