My visit to a power plant.

Wartsila power plant


aerial view of the plant

November 22 was a Wednesday.My colleagues and I decided to visit a power generating plant in my neighborhood as I have said before I live in the outskirts of Abeokuta, close to Ibadan but this power plant we visited was in Ewekoro few miles away from Ibadan. It's a Finnish company in affiliation with larfarge cement plant.

one of the generators

They are the main source of power to the plants both plants owned by Larfarge cement.This company is called Wartsila. Wartsila power generating plant is a mighty power plant although not so mighty compared to other developed countries it generates an average of 90MW full load capacity although it's not always used to its full capacity as its customer operates on a maximum of about the 52MW of power.

air compressors

I am surprised they operate using internal combustion engines. These engines are so mighty they got me surprised. They had 6 of this generators generating at 16MW each this power was being stepped down by two 15000volts transformer before the customers could use. Now let me describe how their workstation room looks like. It's standing on about a 6 by 6 hectare land with large cooling units,several pumps and chillers also several compressors for compressed air usage.

fuel treatment unit

These blue generators is an 18 cylinder, V configuration engine which has its connecting rod taller than me and I am about 178cm tall. What makes it a great plant is that the engines are versatile. They can operate on HF0, LF0 and gas. HF0 is called heavy fluid oil it is always heated before separation is being carried out separation of lubrication oil and pilot fuel in the plant. HF0 is a very thick black oil and is being stored largely on the plant. LF0 is also called diesel or light fuel oil,it is used for combustion and it's always called before usage on the plant. The ability of these generators to switch from gas to LF0 without stopping is super amazing. That's one special feature. They have several tanks for different oil. According to the engineer, gas is being supplied directly from the deport. Nigerian Gas company and as soon as the pressure drops to a level the sensor automatically allows the roaming LF0 into the combustion chamber of the generator combustion in thegroup chamber takes place by injection of pilot fuel at high pressure.

aerial view of tank farm


tank farm

HF0 used in combustion chamber is being heated up before usage to improve its viscosity for the engine an it's being separated to pilot fuel and lubrication oil. But the LF0 used in the combustion chamber chamber is being chilled to about 50 degrees before usage to make its viscosity optimum.

gas supply


control unit

Safety measures were taken around the plant just for fire outbreaks and the way wastes were being taken care of. There were awesome waste pits everywhere which automatically pump into a treatment plant for separation of sludge, lubrication oil and water. The water is treated to be used round while the sludge waste are being transported to be used elsewhere. Wartsila power generating plant plans to deliver power to the grid system in coming months which would improve our power generation in Ogun state, Nigeria.
one of the step down transformers


centrifugal pump

Thanks to @sargento @steemitgraven29 @limabeing @beanz @greenrun for your support and proof read.