Power Generation Oil Condition Monitoring Case Study

Cut oil consumption and maintenance costs by up to 30%

Tan Delta’s power generation monitoring system helps you to cut oil consumption and maintenance costs by up to 30%. Monitoring and servicing your assets with a limited engineering resource to maintain efficiency is a constant balance. To avoid the critical issue of asset breakdown, aggressive maintenance schedules are prescribed that ignore the actual equipment status and are simply based on operating hours and result in significant unnecessary maintenance and oil wastage.

Their power generation monitoring solution uses advanced real time oil analysis to tell you the actual status of your oil and thus when equipment maintenance is really needed. Instantly optimising maintenance programs whilst maintaining engine reliability and continuous oversight.

Case Study Summary

CUSTOMER
Large utility provider in Middle East running a fleet of 200 diesel generators.

PROBLEM
Usable oil is disposed of, and the fleet sees excessive downtime due to the aggressive time-based maintenance schedule. In this environment lubricants are particularly prone to thermal degradation and dust contamination, and rigid service intervals mean early warning signs can be missed leading to avoidable failures. The plant needs to minimise maintenance costs whilst also maintaining reliability.

SOLUTION
Each genset has been easily retrofitted with a Tan Delta SENSE-2 kit. SENSE-2 continually analyses and tracks actual equipment and oil condition, accurately informing the operator when to undertake maintenance based on actual equipment need instead of operating arbitrary schedules.

RESULT
Changing to a Tan Delta enabled condition-based maintenance schedule has enabled the service interval to be increased from 400hrs to 536 hours, resulting in a 25% reduction in maintenance costs and oil consumption. The operator experiences fewer unexpected breakdowns as the Tan Delta system will detect any equipment anomalies or contamination before damage SENSE preventative maintenance.