K-ELECTRIC LIMITED

INTERNSHIP REPORT.
27th July – 14th August, 2015
Plant Operation Area
Bin Qasim Power Thermal Power Station I

Submitted to: Submitted by:

Director Student Placements Muhammad Azeem Uddin
Industrial Liaison Office Second Year, Batch Fall 2013
DHA Suffa University DHA Suffa University
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Acknowledgement

First of all I would like to thank Allah for bestowing me with great blessings.

Man’s effort does matter in the way to achieve success in any field of the world. So I am heartily
thankful to Mr. Imran Ali – Data Control Officer at K-Electric Bin Qasim Power Station I for helping me in
getting such a cherished learning opportunity. He guided me about all the general processes happening
in the plant and preliminary information of every department was also provided by him. He is indeed a
learned person.

My tenure of internship was not too long but I learned too much stuff in such a small period of time. I
learned about numerous things and phenomenon and literally was able to relate the things that I have
been learning in my theoretical courses in the degree program. There might be few things left for me to
learn in there but overall it was a full-fledged learning experience. I was surrounded by intelligent and
problem solving engineers in all the departments that I worked in. If I start from the Boiler Maintenance
Department then I am going to proudly mention the name of Engr. Sana Ullah, Engr. Bilal and Engr. Atif
Awan who taught me the whole process that happens in the boiler and the auxiliaries that are related to
the boiler. Similarly, in the Turbine Maintenance Department I was under supervision of Engr. Zaamin
and Engr. Furqan. They made turbine easy for me to understand. The last but not the least department
was the Plant Operation Department. This department sums up the whole plant in one room i.e. the
boiler, the turbine, the water treatment and other areas of plant are maintained and regulated from this
department. In this department, I was in the humble supervision of Engr. Kishan Kumar who
demonstrated all the areas of plant once again and briefed me about his department.

In this widespread learning period, I was not only facilitated by the executive engineers working in the
company but also the Trainee Engineers who were recently employed. Being fresh graduates they were
very much aware of my level of understanding and explained me many phenomenon.
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Table of contents

S.No. Description Page No.

1 K-Electric at a glance 4

2 Bin Qasim Power Station I 4

3 Objective 5

4 Description of Process 5

 Reverse Osmosis Plant 6

 Water Treatment Plant 6

5 Rankine Cycle 6

 Boiler 6

 Turbine 7

 Condenser 8

 Pump 8

6 Journal Entries 9

7 Conclusion 9
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K-Electric at a glance
The company was initially formed as ‘The Karachi Electric Supply Corporation’ on September 13, 1913.
Soon after the independence of Pakistan in 1947 due to prominent position acquired in Commercial and
Financial institutions, Karachi was called ‘The City of Lights’. As time passed, lack of vision and poor
planning at KESC in 80s and 90s led to severe energy crisis. The new management at K-Electric which
took over in 2008 has introduced several successful initiatives that have enabled significant value
creation across the company’s operations. First 210 MW unit was installed The company’s generation
capacity has been enhanced to 1,010 MW, the transmission and distribution infrastructure has been
augmented, electricity losses have been reduced and financial performance has improved from year to
year.

K-Electric is a public utility company focused on fulfilling energy requirements of Karachi and nearly
populated areas. The main generation plants are located in a remote area of Port Bin Qasim. The
electricity production for Karachi is also shared by other power plants such as Tapal Energy, Gul Ahmed
DGs, KANUPP, etc. but the lion share is produced by Bin Qasim Thermal power station.

Bin Qasim Power Station I

BQPS-I is located near the sea at Port Qasim. There are 6 giant generation units, each of 210MW
production, making the total rated production of 1260MW. 2 of the 6 units are German while the rest
are Japanese manufactured. First unit was installed in 1983 and the 6th unit was installed in 1997. After
transforming into a private organization, it improved its safety standards and got recognized by
certification companies. In Generations, KE is ISO-9001 and OHSAS 18001-2007 certified.
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Internship Objective

The internship at KE BQPS-I was a learning oriented internship. In the tenure of internship I was trained
about the processes happening in the plant. It was focused on exposure to practical engineering
problems and their solution.

Description of the process

Basically the process of producing electricity used here is based on Rankine cycle. A simple Rankine cycle
starts from steam produced by boiler that turns the turbine. The turbine is connected to shaft which
gives mechanical power to the electricity generators. The used steam is then condensed to form water.

This water is pumped again to the boiler and the process continues.

Life is not very easy when we have to generate electricity efficiently and economically. Similarly the
energy conversion cycle used for commercial production is not a simple Rankine cycle. Like what we
have in K-Electric Bin Qasim Power Station I is a multi-staged Regenerative Reheat Rankine Cycle. It
basically consists of the following characteristic parts:

 Boiler and Boiler Steam Drum

 Reheat Air Heater
 Steam Coil Air Heater
 Force Draft Fans, Gas Recirculation Fans and Compressors
 Turbine (Combination of High, Intermediate and Low Pressure turbine blades)
 Condenser
 Pumps (To push water to the boiler and for several other purposes)

Firstly, we all know that the efficiency of turbine and other components of the Rankine cycle depend
upon the quality of steam and the maximum utilization of the generated heat. The quality of steam
totally depends upon the quality of water used. Water of high purity and low conductivity is preferred
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for making steam. So, the water to be turned into steam in this power station goes through two
processes. First it passes through RO (Reverse Osmosis) Plant then it passes through Water Treatment
Plant.

Reverse Osmosis Plant

The basic concept behind RO Process is that the water is forced to move from higher concentration to
lower concentration of dissolved particles (DPs). Osmosis is a natural process in which, water moves
from lower DP value i.e. lower concentration to a higher DP value i.e. a higher concentration. In this
transition, the water observes an increase in its osmotic pressure. So, in order to reverse this process a
series of semipermeable membranes is used to filter the dirt and dust present in water. In addition to
this, a high pressure pump is used before the water enters the membrane to overcome the water’s
osmotic pressure. In this way the DPs of the water are reduced to a negligible number.

Water Treatment Plant

After the RO plant, the water passes to the treatment plant where its conductivity and pH is controlled.
Various operations in the treatment plant include Gravel Filtration, Cat-ion exchange, An-ion exchange
and a couple of chemical processes. After treatment, the water finally reaches to the LP Heater.

Rankine Cycle |The Power Generation

As we know, this power generation is a cyclic process. So, we can start its elaboration from any
component, review the whole cycle and end up to the start point.

> Boiler > Turbine > Condenser > Pump >

Boiler

Boiling is basically constant pressure heat addition process. The boiler here is basically a giant room
10X10 meters and 30 meters high with massive flames and tubes
structure. There are 12 burners which can be operated either on
Natural Gas or Heavy Furnace Oil (HFO). The flow rate of the fuel
along with the service air is generally 3 Tons/hr. The internal
temperature of the boiler reaches up to 1600°C while the
pressure is very low. The water tubes are mounted along the
walls of the boiler. The boiler is fitted with several inspection
glasses at various levels and several manholes. The hot water at
around 250°C and 150 bar pressure enter the economizer tubes.
Economizer is different from other heating places in the boiler as
it is given arched shield which prevents the flue gas to directly
reach this portion. The flue gas reaches economizer after passing
from super heaters (i.e. Primary, Secondary and Tertiary
heaters). At this point, the tube contains partial water portion
while partial steam portion. This mixture is then moved to the
boiler drum where water and steam get separated by using scrubbers and water cyclones. The drum is a
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cylinder having semi-spherical heads on both sides and the construction material for this boiler drum is
15Ni.Cu.Mo.Nb.5 having cylindrical length of 14 meters and diameter of 1.8 meters. This drum is
installed at an elevation of 42.8 meters. It is designed to operate at a temperature of 354°C and a
pressure of up to 172 bars. Here the steam rises above to the super heaters while water remains
collected to the base.

The water in the boiler drum is then moved to the boiler base via down comers. Boiler base has
collectors which are reservoirs of water. GR (Gas Recirculation) Fans suck flue gas from the boiler's top
and blow them in the collectors. These warm gases push the water in the boiler tubes called risers. The
risers are basically metallic tubes on each sides of boiler. While in the risers, the steam turns into
superheated vapors. After the risers, there are primary, secondary and then tertiary heaters. All these
heaters are basically coil of tubes located at various temperature levels in the boiler, with final stage
reaching at 550°C. On the other hand, the flue gases which start their journey at 1600°C end up as a stag
from chimney at 250°C. For the best heating operation, the internal pressure of the boiler should be
minimal, so a FD (Forced Draft) Fan is used for this process. Due to this fan, the internal pressure of the
boiler ranges in mili bars.

Turbine

Turbine is a component at which we are finally able to extract work out of energy. Turbine is also very
complicated here. A set of several Low Pressure, High Pressure and Intermediate Pressure turbine
blades are used in order to get the maximum work out of it. Steam at 150 bars pressure and 550°C
temperature enters the HP Turbine. After loosing kinetic energy at HP, the steam is reheated and
regenerated and then is sent to IP Turbine. The outlet from IP is directly transferred to LP Turbine. At
this point, the steam loses its most of kinetic energy and is ready to be condensed.
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The turbine is configured to rotate at 3000 rpms which is equal to 50Hz that is a standard frequency of
electric current in Pakistan. Power from turbine is regulated by the excitation and de-excitation of the
generators.

Condensor

The steam from the outlet of LP Turbine then passes to the condensors. The condensor is nothing but a
web of metallic tubes. There are approximately 14000 tubes in a condensor and there are two such
condensors for every unit. Runs in the tube; is the cold sea water which is pumped from a sea water
channel near the plant. The steam on passing through these tubes gets condensed to form water, which
is collected in the Hot Well.

The sea water is pumped by CW Pumps from the sea to the condensor. The water from the channel
passes though gravel and debris filters before entering the condensor tubes.

Pump

The water from the hotwell is ready to be recirculated. Firstly the water passes through the Low
Pressure heaters via LP Pumps.The LP Heaters work by using bleed from the turbine. There are 3 LP
Heaters. At this stage the pressure of water is 12 bars. The water then moves to the DE-aerator, where
the oxygen and other gases present in water are removed. Just next to the deaerator is the Boiler Feed
Tank. From the boiler feed tank, the water is transferred to the Boiler Feed Pumps. The input head to
BFP is provided by the force of gravity; as the boiler feed tank is located at a particular height above BFP.
The BFP is a very high pressure pump, as it pressurizes the water to 150 bars and it consumes electric
power of 4MW. After BFP, the water passes through two high pressure heaters which also work by using
bleeds from the turbine. At this point, the water achieves a temperature of 250°C. After all this process,
this water is reaches the economizer tubes in the boiler.

A question may arise that how the LP & HP

heaters would work at the startup of the plant
when we cannot bleed anything from turbine.
So, the point of the fact is that, the LP & HP
Heaters are not the main heating components.
In the startup of the plant, all the heating
process is done in the boiler. Once the plant is
started, we turn on these LP & HP Heaters to
increase the efficiency of the plant. In this way,
the cycle continues to generate electricity.
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Journal Entries

 CASE STUDY: The power breakdowns that happened in the month of Ramadan that affected
nearly the half of the country were caused by tripping of power from WAPDA and by a fire in the
air heaters of BQPS-I Unit#3. Air heater is a rotating heat exchanger for the incoming air and flue
gas going outside. A fire broke out due to failure of its rotation function. When the feed power
was back, the Unit#3 was required to work to overcome the load. But due to burnt air heaters,
its generation capacity was reduced from 180MW to just 80MW. It was anyhow put on work for
the Ramadan to complete, after that it was shut down for maintenance.
 The use of Pneumatic aided auxiliaries were also a big learning part. Many of the places were
not in the quick reach of man power. So, many types of valves and auxiliaries were controlled by
this method. The pressurized gas for pneumatic operation was being generated from the high
power compressors.
 The turbine shaft was cooled by using lubricants. The lubricants were cooled by hydrogen gas.
Hydrogen gas was stored in numerous tanks at many places. Strong safety measures were taken
for the transportation and storage of the hydrogen cylinders.
 The environment was very secure and safety measures were a big benchmark after
transformation of KESC to KE. The food was available from canteen at its particular timings. The
prices of the canteen food were subsidized to make it affordable for everyone. There was a
variety menu with nice quality of foods.

Conclusion

All the stuff explained above is just a glimpse of what I have learnt in my internship. What I got as an
internee in KE is a full-fledged learning experience. The helpful colleagues taught me everything about
the plant and my career development. I have covered most of the departments that I worked in and the
concepts that were built in my mind. However there is clearly a chance that I have missed some
important details here. Being a student, I usually had idea about many processes but the habit asking
things helped me a lot. Now I saw, how practical problems are resolved. Working at an organization like
K-Electric is always beneficial for students. I would like to sum up my this report with a quotation that,

“Learning is a teasing process but fruitful too.”