Turbines fail the most in power plants

Insurance data reveals 43% of all problems occur in turbines

Data released by insurance company FM Global has revealed that turbines fail more than 30% more than other plant and equipment in the UK's power generation sector.

According to the property insurer, of 384 equipment failures reported by its customers over the last six years, 43% were turbines, costing the firm £868 million in payouts. The second most common are generators, which represent 14% of failures with a total of £277 million paid out. Third on the list are transformers, which represent 11% of failures at a cost of £218 million.

Thomas Roche, operations engineering manager for FM Global said: “A skew towards generating equipment is no surprise as failures here involve costly pieces of equipment. Looking across the details people often think that maintenance is the key issue. It is a factor but these losses also show that we need to take a keen interest in operating conditions, particularly where changes occur, and in how well we train operators.”

An equipment failure is defined as a problem which causes the turbine to not function properly so that the company loses revenue.

FM Global said a challenge was that many power stations were built in the last quarter of the last century and are now approaching the end of their lifecycle. It said: “This generates the need to either re-invest in modern equipment or to extend the life of existing assets, whilst also maintaining the highest levels of safety and asset security. If they don’t, losses like this occur.