Risks Associated with Maintenance Decisions Concerning the Afam Electricity-Generation Station

Abstract

For the nationally-deregulated Nigerian electric-power industry, an increasingly competitive environment has resulted to an important question being asked, the costs of maintenance in the plants. To survive the competition, the power stations have to reduce maintenance costs, i.e. handle maintenance effectively. Risk analysis is one tool decision makers in the power stations can use to help them prioritize as their plan maintenance actions. The results of such analysis will form a reliable basis for decision making, it is important to consider whether the quality of the results will vary significantly with the risk analysis approach chosen. This paper presents a factual dataset, with few risk of failures used to illustrate how Weibull analysis can forecast the risk of failures based on a small dataset. Using Gas Turbine number 17 of the Afam thermal power station, two perspectives are described: the statistics and engineering views. The study establishes the importance of the need to analyze and interpret risk analysis results, before making maintenance decisions

Keywords: risk analysis, statistical/engineering methods, and optimization. Afam thermal power station