High tech

At a high tech powerplant one sometimes has to take a step back...
We have to wash the compressor of the gasturbine of unit EC 6.
That is because in this way we wash away the salt deposits (coming from the air because we are located at the seaside), to avoid cracking of the compressor blades; also the efficiency of the gasturbine improves.

We do this so-called "off line", the unit is now at standstill and at turning gear.
First we fill a tank with 2500 liters of water and heat it up till 90° C.
Then we put 80 liters of detergent in the tank by means of a small pump.
We pump water and detergent through the compressor after we bring it up to 750 rev. per minute.
After that we go back to 130 rpm. and let it soak.
At last we go up to 750 again and rinse the compressor by pumping 2500 liters of fresh water through it.
Then we let it dry by keeping it at 750 rpm for two hours.

Fine when it all works.
The first pump we tried to get the detergent in the tank: no go.
After that we got a second pump from another unit but that one also didn't work.
So we decided to use a high tech solution: take a bucket and climb up the tank.
Here's Eric doing so after I gave the filled buckets to him.
Fortunately it was only the detergent, 80 liters and not 2500 liters of water....