WSP is providing quality support and inspection services throughout the £50m, 2-year refurbishment programme to secure the facility’s future.
Building on a Long-Standing Client Relationship
WSP have provided quality management, assurance, and inspection services to Ffestiniog Power Station since 1991. WSP mobilised during the planning stage of this project to offer significant value by identifying quality risks early on and worked to develop robust controls to reduce imported issues.
We evaluated the quality of the engineering and provided surveillance during the construction process to focus on asset integrity at the point of installation. Our experience of the facility, together with our considerable sector expertise, ensured the project attained the highest quality standards.
Pre-construction inspection services
Ffestiniog Power Station is driven by four Francis uni-directional, 90MW water turbines. The refurbishment project (which started 2017 and is now in its final stages of completion) involves replacing turbines 1 and 2.
Our team undertook quality inspections at all stages of the project, including manufacture of the replacement turbine packages at factories across Europe.
WSP QSE witnessed the critical Non Destructive Testing (NDT) of all turbine forgings, and undertook visual and dimensional inspections of machining and welding work to the generator stator frames.
WSP helped First Hydro select key contractors by completing robust vendor audits, ensuring suppliers were capable of delivering the high quality standards required by the project technical specification.
Construction Phase
During the installation and construction phase WSP worked with the multi-disciplinary site project team, providing support and leadership and our ‘right-first-time’ approach ensured safe, efficient operation of the plant up to, and including, operational handover.
Contributing to a Successful Project
Our QS hydro specialists reviewed the Inspection and Test Plans (ITP’s) and set the frequency and intensity of the intervention points. Our component-critical inspection regime was based on our experience of the suppliers’ past performance. We monitored performance and reported on progress and quality issues at each phase of the project. This approach led to the discovery of two non-conformances in the turbine forgings which were able to be rectified at an early stage. Our client recognised the value of our inspections, resulting in the ITP steps being re-negotiated to ensure clear quality expectations, enabling the refurbishment of Ffestiniog Power Station to successfully progress with fewer delays.
Services provided by WSP:
- Review of manufacturers quality management plans (QMP)
- Review of special process for welding, heat treatment and Non-Destructive Testing
- Mark-up of Inspection & Test Plans (ITP) withhold and witness points included based on the criticality and risk
- Surveillance of (NDT)
- Expediting and reporting progress of manufacturing activities
- Monitoring of manufacturing activities including machining, welding, electrical testing, dynamic balancing
- Witnessing of hydrostatic pressure testing
- Witnessing of factory acceptance testing (FAT)
- Final inspection, packing and preparation for shipment
- Review of records, test certification for the manufacturing data book prior to commissioning
* Photo shown is a representation only and is not Ffestiniog Power Station.
