Oxygen probes keep the coal fires burning
15 Jan 2000
Electricity generators in general may still be 'dashing for gas', but Europe's largest coal-fired power station is for the moment still being operated 24 hours a day by National Power at Drax near Selby in Yorkshire. Helping the station's operators to keep the plant running efficiently are nine World Class 3000 oxygen probe systems from Fisher-Rosemount.
According to maintenance engineering staff at Drax, the zirconium oxide probes were chosen because they are easily programmed and calibrated, and also because of their cell replacement capability a spin-off from research on the Apollo space programme.
'Time is money' says one of the maintenance team, 'so a system that has self-diagnostics represents excellent value in terms of reduced maintenance time and costs, and the probe's autocalibration facility makes us confident that representative samples of boiler gases have been analysed accurately.'
A fortnightly check of the systems' calibration gas bottles and signals is now the only preventative maintenance undertaken at Drax. This reduces the likelihood of downtime, as the probes are yielding a life-span cycle of between 18 months and three years.
