Asset Management Methodology: A Probabilistic Approach to Optimize Investments for Coal-Fired Power Plants Reheaters

Despite electricity generation in France is mainly performed by nuclear power plants, the fossil-fired fleet plays a significant role for the French main utility EDF: indeed it is used as a complementary energy to cope with load variations depending on time of the day or weather. Thus it is essential for EDF to ensure a sufficient level of availability and performance for its fossil-fired plants. In addition EDF has recently implemented new air pollution control systems for its 600 MWe coal-fired fleet to cope with the regulatory constraints which are becoming more and more severe. This is why EDF wants to optimize the investments for these plants in a long-term operation perspective. Consequently the reliability of the main components of these plants is a fundamental issue for EDF. The reheaters are some of the key components of a plant boiler; they are subject to severe temperature and pressure conditions which cause several degradations and failures and significantly reduce the availability of the plant. We will describe in this paper the application of the French main utility’s asset management methodology to optimize the investments for the coal-fired reheaters: (1) Qualitative analysis of the experience feedback data to identify the mains risks and mitigation actions, (2) Elaboration of investment strategies and quantification of data including probabilities of failure and (3) Scenario modelling to perform the technical and economic analysis.