White Paper: Improving Power Plant Performance Through Calibration

Calibration helps a power plant in maintaining or even improving safety, as well as in meeting national and international standards. However, calibration is also a matter of profitability. By using high-accuracy calibration equipment, the accuracy of vital measurements can be maintained on a required level and the plant can increase its annual power production capability.

Electric, natural gas, oil, and other energy meters directly influence revenue. Because of rising energy costs, power and energy operations carefully scrutinize these devices to ensure that they accurately account for their energy and bill correctly. Calibration issues that arise in the power and energy industries are also similar to those faced in power and energy consumer industries. Although not directly billable, internal energy consumption and its allocation can make or break a seemingly viable product. Proper instrument calibration helps ensure that these measurements are performed accurately, especially because annual billing can exceed US$ 1 billion in many plants.

Accurate measurements can allow increased energy production. Therefore, high-accuracy calibrators such as the Beamex® MC5 Multifunction Calibrator, have a significant role in improving plant productivity. For instance, reducing the measurement uncertainty in a nuclear power plant can potentially increase electrical production up to nearly 2 percent (see CNA case story).