Author: Dotu

Kuensel | Nim Dorji | August 12, 2021

More than nine months after Mangdechhu Hydropower Authority’s (MHPA) turbine unit three broke down, restoration work is expected to complete next week.

MHPA official said that the unit would resume power generation by August 20. The 720MW plant shut down its turbine number three on September 21 last year.

A flashover has resulted in the burning and carbonisation of stator (a stationary part of a rotary system) windings and other rotor components inside the generator causing an electric short-circuit.

Flashover is a kind of spark that may be caused due to vibrations or insulation failure, which has created carbonisation in the machines. Carbonisation is the phenomenon of dirtying of stator windings and other components, with dark dust, inside the turbine when there are sparks or flash thereby causing an electric short-circuit.

The same unit was shut down for three weeks in June last year due to a fault developed in the stator of the turbine.

An official earlier said that such incidents are not fundamentally and electrically very catastrophic.

Such problems, according to officials, were expected during the operation and maintenance period of any new hydropower plant.

A similar flashover followed by carbonisation occurred in one of the turbines before but it was restored within a month.

Lately, the officials have been working round the clock to fix Unit III. Each of the three groups has around 17 workers and they work in three shifts.

It was learnt that workers from different power plants who have experience in the operation and maintenance were brought in to help expedite the restoration work.

According to a project official, the restoration work is almost complete and only two major testings are left. “The open circuit and short circuit will be conducted in the next two days,” the official said.

If everything goes as expected the plant will be put on the grid on August 20.

As of yesterday, the three units generated around 593.12MW. Each unit is generating around 197MW, which is 10 percent additional power above their capacity.

MHPA was completed in 2020 within seven years at a cost of Nu 51.442 billion. Each of the four units generates 180MW of electricity.

The SAP profit centre for the Power Trading Centre (PTC) was formally launched on May 10, 2021 by Hon’ble Dasho MD and the management at visitor centre, Corporate Office. The Power Trading Centre will be established at Corporate Office under the Corporate Affairs Department (CAD) to build competency in trading of power in the Indian Short-Term Energy Markets and take advantage of other opportunities to enhance revenue generation from existing and future power plants. PTC will also take up export and domestic billings centrally, support implementation of exiting PPAs and tariff reviews and fillings.

The main objective for the creation of profit centre is to bring in financial discipline. The essential modules like human capital, sales and distribution, finance and cost control, and material management were integrated to bring in efficiency, transparency and for proper reporting. The one-month project was successfully executed by the DGPC in-house SAP focal persons.

DGPC recruitment and selection system (RSS) was launched on March 31, 2021. The system is based on SharePoint platform and developed by iTechnologies.

The RSS is aimed to achieve the following automation processes:

• Interface for job seekers and HR to interact and easily complete the application process.
• Interface to the HR administrator to complete the recruitment cycle.
• Well-defined GUIs for HR to advertise vacancies, customise the job application form.
• Central repository in SharePoint server for proper storage and auditing of recruitment details.

The system is expected to make the recruitment process faster, more effective and efficient through improved online application and recruitment process management and ultimately provide an end-to-end online recruitment process.

The Hydropower Training Centre (HTC) at Rinchentse was inaugurated on  February 11, 2021, coinciding with the 30^th day of the 12^th month of the female ox year. The ceremony was graced by Rinchentse Lam in the presence of the head of plant, THP.

The centre was established as a knowledge transfer centre to leverage on the competencies within DGPC for improving business and technical practices in various aspects of hydropower operation, maintenance and management. HTC conducted its first training program on power systems for 10 employees on February 1, 2021, with many in-house training programs in pipeline for implementation.

Further, to bring in financial discipline, the SAP profit centre for HTC was launched on March 18, 2021. The essential modules – human capital, sales and distribution, finance and cost control, and material management, were integrated to bring in efficiency, transparency and for proper reporting. The one-month project was executed by the experts from Thimphu Tech Park along with SAP focal persons from DGPC.

A Memorandum of Understanding was signed between DGPC and Andritz Hydro Private Limited on March 16, 2021, to add a “HM works” business vertical under the scope of BHUTAN AUTOMATION. The objective is to explore business opportunities to carry out design, engineering, manufacturing, fabrication, installation, testing and commissioning of hydro-mechanical components of hydromechanical equipment of hydropower plants and other such equipment/component and related support services for hydropower projects.

As part of Being Green initiatives, the fleet management division distributed waste bags to all the vehicles in the DGPC power plants on March 3, 2021. They also distributed waste bags to some of the city buses and taxis in Thimphu.

This activity was initiated to address the waste management issue as per the requirements of ISO 14001: 2015 Environmental Management System.