Hydroelectric Projects: Conceptualization, Commissioning and Operations (2 of 3)

I’m continuing with the series of posts related to my experience with different Hydroelectric Projects, in Venezuela and in Canada, from the point of view of a Project Manager, Plant Manager and Maintenance Engineer.

We already talked about the conceptualization and initial planning of a hydroelectric project. This second post is about the commissioning stages: what should be taken on count during the commissioning planning, some of the risks that should be identified and some of the mitigating measures you should take on count for those risks. The idea of these posts is to start conversations and debates around the topic. All suggestions and comments are welcomed!

The commissioning phase of a hydro project (and in my opinion, of any big industrial project), is probably the most exciting phase. Seeing the different systems of your project operating for the first time, and especially in hydro, that first turn of the generating unit, is something that definitively you must be there to really feel it. It is an extremely exciting experience!

But is not an easy path to get to this stage. It does require a lot of planning, a huge team effort, lot of coordination between different stakeholders with different priorities, and a very big focus on quality control. We will talk about those four aspects in this post.

The first question that many people may ask is “when is the right time to start to plan for commissioning?”. The answer is: from the early stages of the project.

Early planning stages

When the project is being conceptualized and the basic engineering is completed, it is a good time to start to talk about the commissioning stage on a high level. What should be discussed at this phase is:

• A first iteration of “chronologic order” of events in terms of what major systems require to be commissioned first, and what systems follow up.
• What will be the temporary, and permanent, site services available to start commissioning? (access to sources of energy, water and compressed air)
• At this point some equipment vendors are already selected. It is good to get the vendors involved in this planning stage, to understand what their internal capacities are to go after commissioning activities.
• A first approach to a commissioning budget can be done at this stage, with an accuracy of ±50%.
• A first iteration of the quality control plan for the entire project should be completed and finalized before advancing to detailed engineering.
• Risk management plan should be updated at this stage to include potential risks during commissioning, and establish mitigation measures.

Planning for commissioning during and after detailed engineering stages

Hydro projects are projects with very long lead times, spread about many years. When detailed engineering starts and equipment is selected, it is time to build a detailed commissioning plan. Some advice:

• Prioritize the simple systems that can allow or make it easier for other more complex systems to be completed first. For example: service electric power and plant and generating unit compressed air.
• If your plant has a spillway with gates, or another mechanized reservoir spill control system, prioritize the completion of its commissioning over the generating units. This way, you will guarantee full control of the reservoir through the final stages of the project.
• Prioritize quality control during installation. Don’t be afraid to invest money, time and people on quality control during installation of equipment — it will save you tons of hours, money and people on re-work during commissioning.
• During detailed engineering stages, always keep in mind how you will install the equipment, how you will commission it, and how the customer will operate and maintain it.
• The risk management plan needs to be updated. At this stage, it could be beneficial to start to involve the vendors of the equipment and other stakeholders of the supply chain.

Change management

The only thing that is constant on a project is change. It is the responsibility of the project team to manage that change, and to establish a strong change management process. In the first post of this series I talked about conceptualization, and that is during that stage where changes are way easier to do. When you are on commissioning, changes are very difficult, so it is very important for the project team to be very careful in terms of what changes are introduced to the project.

The customer’s operations team should be involved in the coordination talks between the main contractors, the project management team, and other stakeholders as soon as the final commissioning plan starts to be developed. This will help to get alignment during the execution itself of the different tests that the commissioning activities require. All parties will be on the same page since the planning stages, avoiding any kind of friction and helping to resolve potential conflicts even before they occur.

Tests require coordination between parties, and vendors and contractors have a lot to say on it. It is important for the project team to get their inputs directly and constantly, and to facilitate the coordination between them and operations if it is the case.

Communication, communication, and more communication is the key to coordinate between all different groups and stakeholders in a project of this magnitude.

Another aspect in multi-unit plant projects is that a unit can be operational while others are still under commissioning or even under construction. Clear delimitation of areas of authority (what is managed by the customer’s operations team, what is managed by the contractor) must be already in place way before the tests start.

One of the things that will happen, and that you should expect to happen, during commissioning, is failures on systems and equipment. In fact, it is the best time during the entire project for failures to happen. Normally, during commissioning stages, you have the experts on site, and the vendor support very close and aligned with the objectives of the tests.

Why? Because you have all the support around, and the conditions of your systems and subsystems, including the grid itself, are “test conditions”, so a failure should not have the impact that it may have when you are on the commercial operations’ stage. Not only that, from the vendors’ and contractors’ technical support on site, your operations team will learn how to deal with some failures with the help of the experts — better than any training program, and at no additional costs.

Expect and embrace failures during commissioning, learn from them, document them, add them to your risk management plan.

Quality Control records should be kept for future references and be part of the final delivery package for the customers’ operations team. It is also highly recommended to the customer to consider investing on a dedicated documentation and lessons learned engineering team. The job of that team is to organize and store for future reference all the information that is originated during the tests, in a document database. In my experience, especially back in Venezuela, the company invested on that, and it helped enormously in the diagnosis of failures and issues years after commissioning and into commercial operations.

As it was mentioned at the start of the post, the commissioning stage is probably one of the most exciting phases of a hydro project, and any industrial project in general. For it to go as smooth as possible, it requires proper planning, risk management, coordination between stakeholders, big focus on quality control, and proper follow up and documentation, to learn as much as possible from it.

And you, what do you think should be considered on the commissioning phases? Let’s chat!

Javier Ojeda