Life optimization is critical to extending power plant life

This paper reports that with careful operation and maintenance there is no reason why power pants cannot be operated safely and reliably for 50 years or more. Naturally, this cannot be accomplished without the upgrading of equipment when it becomes necessary. According to the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) about two dozen critical components are responsible for the majority of problems in aging fossil fuel plants. These components fail due to fatigue, creep, corrosion, erosion, and mechanical wear, not only creating for outages but often necessitating costly Paris. In some instances failures pose dangers to personnel. According to EPRI's A. F. Armor, life optimization is a better term than life extension. Utilities have always been reluctant to use the phrase life extension. Armor states that life optimization more accurately describes the importance of value added for each investment dollar. Faced with escalating costs and the slowdown in adding new capacity, electric utility companies are looking toward optimizing the operation of their older power plants. Often, these older power plants are close to the demand area, still have good availability and adequate heat-rate, and burn low-cost fuel.