Identifying relevant indicators for cost-effective maintenance in coal-fired thermal power plants

Abstract

Power plants maintenance embeds a variety of operations and activities directed towards plant's operability, risk prevention/reduction, reliability and availability, which significantly affect plants’ Life Cycle Costs (LCC). The operating ratio value of a power plant, as an indicator of its profitability, is strongly influenced by the implemented cost-effective maintenance. Hence, this work focuses on analyzing the maintenance costs status-quo in the largest coal-fired power plant in Macedonia and via utilizing systems analysis (incl. spatial and temporal aspects) and multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA), it discerns the relevant set of attributes and indicators towards creating a cost-effective maintenance policy .The noted spatial and temporal complexity and correlation of the identified attributes seeks a multidimensional solution to the problem.