Compressed air leaks and screw pumps inspection in a Cameroonian power plant

Dibamba Power Development Company is a heavy fuel oil power plant, the first independent power producer in Cameroon. Operating in the power generation sector in Cameroon and part of the Globeleq Group, the company’s vision is to participate in Africa’s growth through the development and operation of power plants.

The Yassa-Dibamba heavy fuel oil power plant requires compressed air at two pressure levels: 30 bar for the engine start-up air compressors and 7 bar for the auxiliary instrumentation. To produce the instrumentation air, the plant has 3 air compressors running more than 5 000 hours per year with very short stand-by times.

In order to optimize its costs and to guarantee the contractual availability of its machines, the company thought of applying proactive solutions to allow them to anticipate the different failures of their machines and better plan the necessary contingency actions.

Using their new SDT340 ultrasound detector and its flexible sensor, they began to search for air leaks to improve their efficiency, as one of the compressors is currently out of service.

This research led them to identify several air leakage sources, some of which could be directly corrected, while others required further action.