Identifying critical components of combined cycle power plants for implementation of reliability-centered maintenance

Maintenance scheduling and asset management practices play an important role in power systems, specifically in power generating plants. This paper presents a novel risk-based framework for a criticality assessment of plant components as a means to conduct more focused maintenance activities. Critical components in power plants that influence overall system performance are identified by quantifying their failure impact on system reliability, electric safety, cost, and the environment. Prioritization of plant components according to the proposed risk-based method ensures that the most effective and techno-economic investment decisions are implemented. This, in turn, helps to initiate modern maintenance approaches, such as reliability-centered maintenance (RCM). The proposed method is applied to a real combined cycle power plant (CCPP) in Iran, composed of two gas turbine power plants (GTPP) and one steam turbine power plant (STPP). The results demonstrate the practicality and applicability of the presented approach in real world practices.