Fire Protection Intstallation at a hydroelectric central in Costa Rica

Date
june 2014
Location
Torito, Costa Rica
Category
Fire Protection

An efficient solution and the best alternative on costs.

This time, a large-scale project has been undertaken. In 2013, works commenced at Torito Hydroelectric Plant, situated in the region of Cartago, northwest of Costa Rica. With capacity of power generation of up to 50 MW, it allows for electricity supply to over 95,000 users.

Due to this installation, Union Fenosa would become the biggest private electricity supplier in the country.

Our main responsibility was to supply the installation with a fire protection system within its different premises in which we would like to highlight:

  1. Machinery house
  2. Pump house
  3. Exterior transformers
  4. Substation building
  5. Outdoors park

Each zone has specific characteristics and needs when it comes to tackling a fire protection installation.

If the project was seemingly complex a priori, alternative fire protection systems to those initially proposed at the start of the project had to be taken into consideration. Furthermore, cost efficiency remained essential without paying attention to security and effectiveness.

Engineering works to define the fire protection systems at a hydroelectric plant.

On the basis that a number of conditions were provided by the client, verification of solutions proposed was necessary to ensure they were the appropriate ones. Some of them were:

  1. Installation adequacy to current legislation. There a lot of legal requisites to consider concerning this type of installations hence nothing can be left to chance in order to avoid any nasty surprises.
  2. Technical support to clients´ queries.
  3. Hydraulic calculations for those fire protection systems that use water and gases.
  4. Supporting calculation of leak levels allowed. Door Fan Test. This test allows to precisely assess the seal of a room that is going to be protected against fire through a Fixed Extinction Installation by total inundation, with a gas extinguisher agent. In this case, an inert gas agent has been chosen à IG 541 LPG
  5. Supporting calculations at alarm noise levels.
  6. Check  luminescence trials. Proposed illumination is analysed in order to avoid certified luminescence because this kind of signal has flaws.

After gathering this information, it was time to present the solution proposed, choose the equipment and start off the installation. On the next lines, installation for each of the areas of the hydroelectric plant is going to be discussed.

Once everything had been checked in order to proceed the execution of the installation, the following points were verified:

  1. Tests, inspections and necessary analysis to ensure the assembly was rightful.
  2. Plan dossier previous to the execution of AS Built. This dossier is the engineering project where plan updates, calculations and other adjustments are reflected. Any changes demanded in the course of the works are also brought into play.
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Fire protection systems installed for each of the rooms

Machinery house

The machinery house of a hydroelectric plant, also known as Turbines Room or Central, is where electric groups for electric energy production are located. For this room, the installed systems were the following:

  • Detection system and automatic analogous alarm.
  • Lineal detector system Atrio, main excitation floor.
  • Detection system through early suction in control cabinets and false technical floor Sc and SE.
  • Extinction system with extinguisher agent IG541 in control room and electric room.
  • Amerex extinguishers.
  • Push bottom signs, sirens, extinction means, evacuation and stair beaconing. For this occasion, making sure the signs dimensions to the observation distance were accurate.

Pump house

    • Pump unit developed by KSB.
  • Detection system and analogous automatic alarm
  • Extinction system through automatic sprinkler.
  • AMEREX extinguishers.
  • Push bottom signs, sirens, extinction means and evacuation.

Exterior transformers.

  • Detection system and analogue automatic alarm (Notifier) and conventional
  • Extinction foam system of expansion means SABO ESPAÑOLA.
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Communication control

The principal risk taken was the communication control and the battery room. That is why the following precautions were adopted:

  • Detection system and automatic alarm.
  • Detection system through early suction in control cabinets.
  • Amerex extinguishers.
  • Push bottom signs, sirens, extinction means, evacuation and stair beaconing.

Outdoors park

This area is where exterior transformers, feeder disconnectors, busbar disconnectors, switches, intensity and tension transformers are located. It has been installed:

  • Amerex extinguishers.

Provision of clean drinking water for the substation building.

As you can see, it is common that a fire protection installation demands a study of specific areas and each area shall be able to adopt a different solution. Each zone has to be tackled very carefully in order for the installation to work perfectly.

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