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When a fast-moving cold front passed through die Southeast in early spring 2008, it triggered tornadoes and severe thunderstorms tiiroughout the region. One system north of Savannah, Ga., spawned a tornado that left a path of destruction several miles long.
A combined cycle power plant lay directly in the path of the storm, but the tornado lifted just before hitting one of the plant's cooling towers. Even so, it damaged the fans and fan shroud structures at the top of that tower. It then touched down again, completely destroying the plant's second, newly constructed cooling tower 300 feet away. The plant remained essentially undamaged other than the cooling towers, but with a total loss of condenser cooling capacity it was put out of business.
The company worked with a vendor to design a temporary cooling system and 10 days later the temporary system was online and the plant was generating power. The new cooling tower took almost four months to construct - four months of lost revenue and power production capacity without the temporary solution.
In addition to tornado, wind or ice damage, there is always the risk of fires, rot and structural degradation for even the most well-made or maintained structures, so temporary systems are used for emergency or planned repair.
There is a growing trend for plants to develop contingency plans to provide for partial or complete cooling water replacement in the...