23 July 2024

Quartzelec delivers urgent repair to 135MW generator at Philippines power station

PALM Concepcion Power Corp. has entrusted the urgent repair and refurbishment of its 135MW Alstom generator to Quartzelec to ensure its circulating fluidized bed combustion coal-fired power plant on Panay Island in the Philippines is back up and fully operational by the first week in August 2024, following a failure to earth in a generator stator bar during routine HV testing

A small team from the Philippines based Quartzelec facility were mobilised to site mid-March to quickly assess the damage and make initial recommendations. Carrying out root cause analysis, it was confirmed that the generator had failed due to a stator earth fault, with Quartzelec issuing an independent RCA report to PCPC. 

Preliminary repair work by the Quartzelec Philippines team began early June to re-insulate the damaged coils following the sustained stator insulation damage. This phase was fully under Quartzelec control and would provide the necessary temporary ‘fix’ in working towards re-establishing full power early August.

Simultaneously, replacement components including stator bars and a full rewinding kit are also being sourced to facilitate the permanent repair, which will be scheduled in line with future planned maintenance work, end 2025, due to the lead time of the generator stator bars and available outage time. 

A PALM Concepcion Power Corp spokesperson, when notifying various stakeholders across the energy sector and the government on this significant update advised; “This provisional fix is to enable the power plant to be functional at the soonest possible time to ensure a stable supply of electricity to the Island of Panay”. They then continued: “The power plant will then undergo a permanent repair ‘concurrently’ during the annual preventive maintenance schedule in October to November 2025, due to the manufacturing lead time of the replacement parts from abroad.” 

Dominic Buse, International Operations Director for Quartzelec added: “Due to our extensive knowledge and experience combined with our local workforce, we were approached to provide assistance in the urgent repair of the 135MW generator’s 14 off damaged stator bars. We are leveraging our design and engineering experience in the UK to fabricate a re-designed winding solutionahead of the plant’s scheduled maintenance window - ready for installation, where our Philippines team will once again be on hand to carry out the full strip and rewind of the generator stator bringing it back to full reliability and extending the operational life of the machine.

PALM Concepcion Power Corp. (a joint venture between A Brown Co Inc. and Jin Navitas Resource Inc.) began construction of its first 135MW unit with a steam turbine and generator manufactured by Alstom in 2013 with commercial operations starting August 2016. Panay is powered by four, large coal power plants with a total capacity of 451MW plus nine smaller diesel/bunker and renewables adding a further 220MW capacity. The island is the sixth largest and fourth-most populous island in the Philippines, with a total land area of 12,011 km² and a population of around 4.5m.

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