Description: Bench was called to attend the site of a small power generator in central BC. The sawmill site produces approximately 2 MW of electrical power from wood waste, which offsets the power supplied to the site from the utility. The power generating system was experiencing trips over the previous several days. Bench was able to determine the cause of the trips was over-frequency protection and initiated by the generator protection system. The utility grid was experiencing abnormally high excursions from nominal frequency, and these excursions were beyond the threshold of the over-frequency protection setting. With help from the equipment manufacturer and client, minor changes to the protection settings were made which allowed the power generating system to remain online. Attending the site the same day we were called and quickly resolving the problem allowed the client to avoid further costly downtime.
Duration and Completion: The job was started and finished in 1 day in mid-2023.