A 2.2 gigawatt electricity generation plant in the U.S. is saving millions of dollars in maintenance outage costs as a result of the Whiting Corporation’s capability to install and commission a 250-ton turbine bridge crane while adjacent turbine generators ran at full power with no down time. Safety was such a priority for the heavy lift at a nuclear generating station in Michigan, which produces enough power for a city of 1.25 million people, the Whiting team constructed an entire hydraulic heavy lifting and rotation test structure off-site in preparation for the actual installation. Whiting Corporation says installing the bridge crane while the station was operating saved millions of dollars and a great deal of time prior to an upcoming refuelling outage. The innovative installation saved $18 million that would have been absorbed into the community rate base. The savings achieved in time and money are applicable to other turbine, generator and heavy lift applications across a wide range of industries seeking to enhance safety and avoid downtime. It also cut the retrofit outage by a week, says Dave Weber, Director of Nuclear Services, Whiting Corporation. Whiting is a leading crane producer with overhead cranes in nearly all American nuclear and conventional power plants. Applicable to diverse industries using turbines, the ultra-safe and time-saving safety lift and rotation project has won a global award for the operation to rig and lift more than five million pounds of components while adding a second Whiting crane to the plant’s generating room as part of an upgrade to enhance safety while curtailing downtime and potential accident hazards. The award recognizing top industry practice in heavy lifting was made at the 2015 Power Engineering Awards hosted by Power Engineering, Renewable Energy World, and Nuclear Power international magazines during Power Generation Week in Las […]