2018 33 Paper: West Kiewa Refurbishment – a retrospective review

This paper discusses the 8-year refurbishment program that occurred at West Kiewa Power station looking at the key challenges, the lessons learnt and the performance of the asset 2+ years after completing the final unit overhaul. West Kiewa Power Station is the 4th Power Station on the Kiewa Scheme and has 4 x 18.5MVA Francis machines. Originally commissioned in 1955/56, West Kiewa commenced extensive ½ life refurbishment in 2008. Due to funding arrangements the project was separated into 2 large refurbishments, the Generators (inc. AVRs, Protection) between 2008 - 2012 and ‘The Wet End’ (inc. Turbines, Main Inlet Valves, Governors, Controls) between 2013 and 2015. Whilst under taking the first outage of the wet end project, significant civil works were completed on both head race and tail races (some 5.5km of Drill and Blast tunnel). Given the extensive amount of work performed on this site over an extended period, how did we go? Did the project meet the business case? And what is the legacy the project leaves behind (good and bad!)?

• Author: Michael Turney
• Exchange: 2018 - Albury AGL
• Company: AGL Energy
• Topic: Asset Management, Asset Replacement, Francis, Generator, Governor, Insulation, Refurbishment
• Key Words: Asset, Hydraulics, Rehabilitation, Runner, Turbine, Upgrade/Uprate, cost, generator