Asia Power Week 2017

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Improved Operability of the Natural Gas Fired Generation Units through Fire and Gas Detection Philosophy Review – A Case Study (Room Nile 3)

A major power plant in an Asian metropolis experienced an accidental gas release event at the Gas Receiving Station (GRS) within its natural gas fired generation units, which led to the unexpected shutdown of all units and subsequent loss of all gas fired generation output in a matter of a few minutes. This event almost resulted in a sudden blackout of the city. The affected power company together with ERM conducted a review of the event focusing on the effectiveness of their Fire and Gas (F&G) detection system. Besides personnel safety and equipment integrity, reliability of power supply is another vital factor to be given due consideration by the F&G detection system. Sudden power outage induced by an ESD event will lead to significant economic loss for the community of consumers and potentially escalated safety impact to the public (e.g. hospitals, telecommunication facilities). The F&G detection philosophy of automatic ESD based solely on voted F&G detectors was revised through a series of technical review, MOC workshop discussions and desktop analysis (using PHAST / CFD / ERM F&GPro©) resulting in the following major outcomes: • Adopting a combination of delayed manual shutdown/manual ESD / delayed automatic ESD upon F&G detection, depending on the severity of a gas release or fire event; • Provision of supplementary gas detection methods such as peripheral open-path gas detectors, acoustic gas leak detectors, thermal imaging cameras and CCTV cameras; • Provision of the F&G display panel Human-Machine-Interface (HMI) to enable quick confirmation and action upon alarm; and • Update of the Emergency Response Plan accordingly. The likelihood of potential trips due to spurious alarms and low severity fire and gas release events is significantly reduced without compromising the onsite safety. The study enabled the power plant to improve the operability of its natural gas fired generation units, which was well received by the regulatory authority.