How to Improve the Availability of the Geothermal Power Plant with the IoT Based O&M Support

Abstract

Compared to the thermal power plant, the operation of typical geothermal power plant is not so complicated because they utilize lower and constant pressure steam. On the other hand, they always suffer troubles or long term deterioration due to impurities and gases contained in the geothermal fluid such as sulfur, chloride, silica, hydrogen sulfide and so on. Usually a lot of resource is invested in order to keep watch over those problems and this costs huge amount of expenses throughout the long period of the operation. In consideration of such circumstances, we have released the IoT based cloud service tool to improve the power sales revenue. This tool includes (1) Dash Board (the operation assist system), (2) Fault Diagnosis, (3) Performance Monitor and (4) Operation Optimization. Among those function, the Performance Monitor evaluate the historical trend of the power plant by comparing to the estimated performance which is calculated by the virtual plant model, so that it reveals the deterioration of the plant. This service tool provides operators with instruction how to operate the plant and maximize the net output (kW) under variable boundary conditions such as geothermal resource, the atmospheric conditions or the demand from the grid. The calculation example and its effectiveness are discussed in this paper.