UNIT 10 BLADE SERVO REFURBISHMENT

Commencement Date: 25th November 2019

Contractual Obligations: As part of fulfilling EUL’s contractual obligation to return the plant in good working condition as stated in clause 3.6 of the Concession and Assignment Agreement of 2002.

Refurbishment Phases: The refurbishment project involves three major phases of dismantling, Engineering and Reassembly, Testing and Commissioning with the core scope being to rectify the blade servo fault and generator overhaul but also with an additional scope that includes, Governor upgrade , Excitation upgrade, 11kV cables replacement, generator transformer refurbishment and civil structure repairs.

Progress Update: Currently, about 77% of the works have been completed. works for this phase include actual machine dismantling, extensive cleaning, inspections, assessments and generation of RTOs and report writing.

How the progress has been achieved: Executing tasks in parallel has helped catch up on the time that was lost during the soft foot exercise. Measurements, Inspections and Cleaning were being done concurrently with the critical activity of runner hub dismantling. The major phases completed so far include -

  • Waterway’s preparation (dewatering) – Completed 100%
  • Pre-dismantling checks and inspections – Completed 100%
  • Dismantling of the turbine and generator (Actual dismantling of the unit components)
  • Dismantling of the turbine and generator (including cleaning, Crack examination, foundation surveys and measurements) - 85%

Unit 10 History

Unit 10 is one of the ten generating units at Nalubaale Hydro Power Plant with a rated capacity of 18MW. The unit was first commissioned in July 1968 and later refurbished and uprated from 15MW to 18MW in April 1992. The unit was in normal service until 2013 when it was shut down due to malfunctioning of the runner hub blade servo system due to wear and tear. Similar faults were registered on Units 3 and 6 and these were rectified accordingly in 2018 and 2014, respectively. Other units including Unit 1 are scheduled for the same intervention soon.