Restoring Cairo electricity back to full power using ABB’s TrafoSite Repair^TM

CEPC is an affiliate of the Egyptian Electricity Holding Company and has six power plants producing 32% of the total energy generated in Cairo. A transformer manufactured by ABB, installed in Cairo North Power Plant Unit No. (4), failed on 3rd October, 2008. The transformer was a 325 MVA step-up type and worked between a 15.75 kV line and a 220 kV line feed. ABB Italy, with the support of ABB Egypt FES, together with representatives of CEPC met in Cairo twice, first at the end of October 2008 for an initial investigation and secondly on January 19th, 2009 for a final investigation. During both investigations, tests were performed to verify and find the causes of the failure. The failure which led to loss of production and problems to the plant’s configuration needed a fast repair. Following an investigation by ABB Italy to find the cause

of the problem, led by pressure to reduce downtime, a decision was made for on-site repair with the replacement of damaged windings.

The final request for quotations was sent on January 19th and the offer was submitted by ABB four days later. A letter of intent was received a week later, and the order was placed to ABB Italy on February 2nd, 2009. ABB guaranteed delivery time within 23 weeks (including post repair tests and commissioning). This was considerably shorter than a factory repair (35 weeks).

The support given by ABB and the quick turnaround time of TrafoSite Repair^TM will allowed CEPC to re-energize the transformer before the summer period, when the request of power will be maximum, and reduce their loss of production.

This order is in addition to other successful TrafoSiteRepair^TM solutions in the Middle East. ABB contributes this success to 15 years of experience in repairing more than 200 power and industrial transformers up to 800 kV using TrafoSiteRepair^TM.