Kimanis 300 MW Combined Cycle Power Plant

Scope of works

Mechanical and electrical consultancy for a 300 MW combined cycle plant using sea water cooling.

A 300 MW combined cycle plant is a system of tightly coupled systems: gas turbines, heat recovery, steam plant and the balance of mechanical and electrical services that keep them available. Kimanis adds a coastal variable — sea water cooling — which brings intake and outfall design, materials selection against a corrosive medium, and marine growth management into the mechanical scope.

Our consultancy covered the mechanical and electrical engineering of the plant, where the recurring discipline is interfaces: between the power island and the balance of plant, between the plant and the grid, and between every system that must fail safely without taking the others with it.

Technical particulars

Capacity

300 MW

Plant type

Combined cycle

Cooling

Sea water cooling

What this kind of commission involves

High voltage supply work is where the programme risk sits in a large development. The engineering is well understood and largely codified; what consumes the schedule is land, access, wayleave and utility approval. A supply arrangement settled early shapes the building. One settled late means redesigning around a substation that has nowhere to go.

Disciplines engaged

• Maximum demand assessment and diversified load schedules
• Supply strategy — voltage level, firm supply, number of incomers
• Intake and distribution substations (PMU/PPU) and consumer substation (SSU) layout and civil requirements
• Transformer sizing, vector group, tap range and loss evaluation
• Switchgear specification — air-insulated or gas-insulated, ratings and interlocking
• Protection philosophy, relay grading and utility interface coordination
• Earthing, lightning protection and step/touch potential assessment
• HV cable routing, sizing, wayleave and joint/termination specification
• Standby generation, essential services and changeover schemes
• Utility application, technical submission and energisation witnessing

What we watch for

The failures that recur on this building type, and where we look for them.

• Substation position agreed after the architecture is frozen
• Wayleave for the incoming cable route started too late
• Declared maximum demand that no longer matches the built development
• Protection grading assumed rather than agreed with the utility and proven on site

The following describes the standard engineering scope for this sector. The specific scope of any individual commission is set by its brief and contract.

Project location