NRG Prepares Gladstone Power Plant for Major Maintenance Outages & Switchyard Upgrades

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources Australia (Perth, Australia)--NRG Gladstone is close to commissioning the final switchyard upgrade on the last two units at the Gladstone power plant in March and May 2014. NRG Gladstone Operating Services (Gladstone, Australia), in association with state government corporation Powerlink (Brisbane, Australia), started the 132/275-kilovolt (kV) switchyards rebuild program in 2013. Upgrades on four units were completed by the end of 2013. Powerlink undertook the refurbishment of the switchyard, as the current facilities are deemed to be at the end of their working lives.

The 1,680-megawatt (MW) NRG power station has been operated by NRG Gladstone operating services, on behalf of joint venture participants Rio Tinto Limited (NYSE:RIO) (Brisbane, Australia) (42.125%) and NRG Energy Incorporated (NYSE:NRG) (Princeton, New Jersey) (37.5%).

The coal-fired Gladstone plant features six Siemens AG (NYSE:SI) condensing reheat turbines, each rated at 280 MW and coupled with Siemens generators.

As confirmed by NRG, the switchyard upgrade will take place when Unit 5 will be cut during the four-week outage this month, while the last one, Unit 6, will be rolled out during a four-week outage starting in May. The project also will include demolition of the switchgear bays and the removal of the bus tie transformers to facilitate the installation of new switchgears.

In addition to the minor outages, NRG will perform a 65-day major maintenance outage on one of the remaining four units in June. The procedure will include inspections and repairs to all the major equipment of the unit. NRG will perform this outage with Siemens and CBH Limited, which have a rolling, long-term agreement for turbine and boiler maintenance, respectively. Minor work will be let out to local subcontractors, as needed, in the next few weeks.

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