| Abstract |
In Africa, the Kenya Electricity Generating Company (KenGen) is the leading generator of electricity from geothermal sources. KenGen owns and operates five conventional geothermal power plants and twenty-one wellhead units. The oldest operational geothermal plant is the Olkaria II Power Station, which has an installed capacity of 105 MW from three generating units, each rated at 35 MW. In May 2023, Olkaria II Unit 1 was shut down for 30 days to undertake planned contracted work on repairing the circulating water system pipework. The maintenance team took advantage of this outage to conduct a mini-overhaul. The overall objective was to inspect the unit and perform remedial work to restore its output from 29 MW to its rated capacity of 35 MW. During the inspection, it was noted that one turbine blade had fractured. Due to the complexity of the task at hand, a comprehensive project repair methodology needed to be adopted to ensure that the unit was brought back within the contractor's timeline of 30 days. Therefore, a hybrid methodology combining Waterfall and Agile approaches was employed. This involved comprehensive planning and scheduling, optimal resource allocation, and proactive maintenance and communication. Since this unique task had not been undertaken at this power plant before, this paper proposes detailing the activities carried out throughout the execution of the turbine reblading process. It also demonstrates how the hybrid methodology approach transformed a potential crisis into an opportunity for capacity building and cost savings. |