Iranian experts and engineers have indigenized the triple screw pump used in power plants for the first time in the country and installed it at Neka Power Plant in Mazandaran Province.
Considering the fact that the units of the power station are in operation for over four decades, some of the plant’s parts and equipment are worn out and need to be replaced, the Energy Ministry’s news portal Paven reported.
However, following the harsh US sanctions on the country in the past years, Iran has been unable to import certain equipment such as screw pumps from foreign countries.
The United States slapped tough economic sanctions after the twice-impeached president, Donald Trump, unilaterally abandoned the landmark Iran nuclear deal in May 2018. The sanctions, particularly on energy, banking, insurance and shipping sectors, bar US companies from trade with Iran. Foreign firms are not spared.
A problem of thermal power plants in Iran is that many have long outlived their usefulness. Power plants built decades ago are still in service, largely due to the government’s inability to replace them under the difficult economic conditions.
Therefore, local experts and specialists made efforts to gain the technical know-how to manufacture a triple screw pump through reverse engineering and finally succeeded in making the part and successfully installed it in the steam unit of Neka Power Plant.
So far, only a few countries have had the technology of making such pumps, including Sweden, Germany, the US and the UK, but now Iran has also acquired it.
Within the power generation sector, screw pumps are commonly found in applications such as bearing and gear lubrication, high pressure fuel injection, fuel forwarding, jacking oil and hydraulic power for hydro plant control.
A screw pump, also known as a water screw, is a positive-displacement pump that uses one or several screws to move fluid solids or liquids along the screw(s) axis.
Triple screw pumps consist of three rotating parts, which turn in their precisely machined housing bores.
Screw pumps operate using two counter-rotating screw rotors that are engineered so that they rotate “toward each other”. This traps the gas in the space between the “screws” of their rotors. As the screws rotate, this trapped volume decreases, which not only compresses the gas but moves it toward the exhaust.
Located 25 km north of Neka City, the 2,700-megawatt thermal plant is one of the largest in Iran. It has one steam unit, four steam turbines, a combined-cycle power facility and a gas unit. The plant started work in the early 1980s.
Localizing Equipment
The knowledge and technology of manufacturing power plant equipment were previously monopolized by the United States, Germany, Italy, Switzerland and Japan, but now Iran has joined the top five countries with this technology, director of the board of Iran Power Plant Repairs Company said.
Referring to latest achievements in the field, Gholamreza Mehrdad said, “We can now produce steam and gas turbine blades and compressors 60% cheaper than the foreign samples. There are 60 rotors in the country that are more than 40 years old and need to be replaced, and this will happen soon with the efforts of domestic knowledge-based firms and manufacturers.”
Over 80% of the parts and equipment used in thermal power plants have been indigenized.
Thermal plants account for 80% of total power output (85 gigawatts) in the country of 83 million people. Over 80 thermal power plants with around 66 gigawatts of capacity are operational.
Components made by local companies have been approved by the Institute of Standards and Industrial Research of Iran.
In addition to upholding national standards, the parts are sent to international institutions for tests and verification.
