Commissioning aspects of generating units of Indira Sagar Project

Commissioning of 8 generating units and associated bays of 400 kV switchyard in a span of 15 months (Unit-1 was synchronized on 1st January 2004 while Unit-8 was synchronized on 23rd March 2005) was an uphill task/challenge from the point of view of “keeping the momentum going” as normally 3–4 units are encountered in most of the power stations. Commissioning the units on pre-decided dates was running against the time as the last runner in the relay race has to run the fastest with an eye on the target. It is of great pleasure that in spite of difficulties like inundation of power station in July 2003, Indira Sagar project achieved this target with excellent execution, great team effort and has set a stiff benchmark. The paper is an effort to bring in a nutshell brief details of equipment, the important site tests/commissioning tests conducted at site and shares some of the difficulties encountered in commissioning and how the same were overcome.