Employees of COTES Engineering had a highlight tour at TPP-5

On August 1, Thursday, 10 COTES’ mployees had a highlight tour at Novosibirsk TPP-5 together with other city residents. Visits at the plants are a common practice for young employees and students majoring in power energy. This is reasonable, because they have to know how the TPP’s complex organism operates in practice, beyond the theory. We have decided to talk with the tour participants to find out their expectations and to understand if their expectations have been met.

Darya Shabanova, Lead Estimating Engineer, has not visited the thermal power station before: “Each item that I add to the cost estimate, I have only seen in the drawings and pictures. I have no specialized education. I am an Environmental Engineer and I graduated from the Water Transport Academy. It was a very interesting and useful experience for me to see how the plant really looks like. The turbine is bigger than I expected. It is too bad that we could not see the boiler. We do much work related to the boiler equipment, so I wanted to see it so much.”

It is also the first time for Alexandra Morozova, Leading Specialist of the Project Management Department.. “I am specialized in the cost estimates for the process equipment. In addition, since I have no education in heat engineering, I always lacked understanding of how the plant is arranged and operated. In general, I liked the tour, but I would like to know more details. We have even passed the turbine unit too quickly.”

Natalia Becker, Category 1 Construction Engineer, told that she had wanted to visit the operating plant for a long time. “I have only visited the facilities under construction within the scope of field supervision before. As a person who designs the engineering structures for installing the process equipment, I wanted to see a broad picture, carefully study the entire technology, and ask the detailed technical questions. Certainly, I know the theory up and down, and I even visited Novosibirsk TPP-5 this winter, but it was for work and in a particular unit. I did not have a chance, time, and opportunity to get familiar with the plant’s operation in whole. The tour helped a little, but my expectations were higher. It would have been great if TPP-5 organized more detailed tours for specialists.”

Anastasia Kuryanova, Leading Heat Engineer, came to the plant to ask specific questions. “Transition from hard coal to lignite coal is currently a trend. I wanted to see how it was implemented here. I understand that this is a highly specialized issue but it is essential. I wanted to see the boiler unit, hammer mills and to get to know how the exhaustion channel from explosion valves was implemented.”

Nikolay Kolesnikov, Chief Specialist and Head of Construction Team, surely, visited plants, including Novosibirsk TPP-5, many times. “I always came there for work, to the particular units and with the particular tasks. Today, I wanted to see it as a whole. I wanted to see the boiler department, chemistry department, zero mark of the turbine department, coal warehouse and fuel supply system. It is a purely professional interest, to see how the equipment is connected with the engineering structures at the operating plant. E.g., a turbine, which is the plant’s core, is installed on the foundation that carries significant loads. I understand how it may work in theory and how it works in the new plants. But it is also interesting how it is arranged here, in the plant, wherein the turbines have been operated for a long time: its foundation, whether the vibrator isolators are used, whether there are vibrational problems, etc. There is a number of other cutting questions related to other departments of the main building and other departments.”

Ilya Melnikov, Chief-manager of turn-key projects: “I have worked at Novosibirsk TPP-5, in the Department of Capital Construction, for 3.5 years. I came here to support young specialists, to see the plant, and to ask the technical questions that I am now interested in. I liked that the technology was described clearly. It is useful for all professionals to understand the entire process cycle of the plant operation. I have an education of an Automation Engineer, so it is useful even for me to see how different process departments and equipment look like and connected together. However, I lacked the depth and I wanted to see a boiler department. The tour was created primarily for common citizens. They are hardly interested in the technical details we need.”

Certainly, such tours are very useful for all professionals working in the power industry. It is not just important to understand how related specialists work and how the equipment (that you do not work with) is operated, it is even a critical issue for designing safe and efficient plant of any scale. However, it is also evident that common tours are not enough for engineers. We would love to take part in a specialized tour for professionals, at another access level, longer-term, and detailed.