ACTOM has won a long-term Eskom power stations fan maintenance contract for the first time.
The multi-million rand four-year Fanserve contract for six power stations – Matla, Kusile, Kriel, Majuba, Duvha and Arnot – was awarded to the Fan Service division of LH Marthinusen (LHM) in November 2021.
The contract, which took effect on January 1 this year, is for the ongoing maintenance of the stations’ draught plant, comprising induced draught (ID), forced draught (FD) and primary air (PA) fans.
“After a prolonged and challenging tender process, LHM’s tender was one of just two that were short-listed out of the initial seven submitted for consideration. This was followed by a rigorous auditing process to investigate our technical capabilities, including determining if we were properly equipped with the advanced systems needed for us to perform the complex and demanding work involved. In addition, numerous negotiations were held between LHM and Eskom prior to the award of the contract,” said Craig Johnson, General Manager of LHM’s Fan Service division.
The internationally renowned fan manufacturer TLT-Turbo GmbH of Germany, for which LHM is the Authorised after-market Service Partner, is the OEM of the variable pitch ID fans in the three most modern power stations in Eskom’s fleet, namely Majuba, Medupi and Kusile.
“The importance of the fact that LHM, as TLT-Turbo’s Authorised Service Partner, is now playing a key role in providing all maintenance services and technical backup on the draught fans of six Eskom power stations, including those at two of the three stations equipped with TLT-Turbo ID fans cannot be overstated,” Craig commented.
LHM has established permanent sites at the six stations and is in the process of establishing modern systems to manage the maintenance and outage work at the stations.
A major undertaking is the skills development of all the people responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of the draught plant at each of the stations. To facilitate this LHM is incorporating some of the draught plant specialist training modules into its recently-expanded Skills Development Centre at its main repair and refurbishment facility in Denver, Johannesburg.
Contracts Manager Gareth Bodley, who has overall contract responsibility for all six stations, said the contract requires a permanent maintenance team at each site to perform regular inspections and maintenance work. It also covers the intensified maintenance and repair work that has to be carried out during the periodic outages that are planned for each of the power stations’ generation units.
“Each outage requires up to 40 maintenance people who have to be properly briefed beforehand on the scope of work they are required to perform. Every outage is planned in advance, with regular meetings being held with senior staff of the power station concerned,” Gareth explained.
In addition to setting up site offices, workshops, spares stores, handling equipment and vehicles at each site, LHM had to recruit the suitably skilled people needed to make up each of the permanent on-site teams, as well as prepare for the shutdowns scheduled for the various generation units.
“These call for the hiring of extra skilled and experienced people over and above the permanent site-teams, as well as a large number of semi-skilled workers and assistants who make up the bulk of our workforce during a shutdown,” Gareth pointed out.
The contract also demands the provision of skills development programmes for local communities, including hiring of local labour for the shutdowns, as well as contracting local small enterprises to provide various products and support services needed by the on-site teams.
