Lanes Group has cleared the pipes in a power station in a Welsh mountain using specialist cutting equipment, the company said.
The company’s drainage engineers drove its service vehicles, including a jet vac tanker, down a tunnel into Mt Elidir Fawr to carry out the work on drainage pipes at Dinorwig hydroelectric power station.
The facility has six 300MW generators.
First Hydro Company contracted Lanes Group for the work, which involved clearing calcite and silt that had built up in drainage pipes located in the main inlet valve gallery, where six giant valves feed water into turbines.
“The calcite deposits, in particular, was beginning to compromise the gallery’s drainage system, so the work Lanes has done for us has been very important,” Engineering Geologist for Frist Hydro said.
“Conventional methods of clearing the pipes, such as pressure washing and rodding, didn’t work, so we needed the specialist equipment and skills Lanes has to provide an effective solution.”
To remove the deposits in the enclosed pipes, the Chester team has used a Picote Maxi Miller robotic grinder and high pressure jetting, with a specialist bulldog nozzle, designed for descaling pipes.
The Picote Maxi Miller allows an operative to remove deposits with a high degree of precision, by monitoring progress using a mini camera build into cutting head.
The Lanes sewer renovation team used an IMS robotic cutter to remove the most stubborn mineral deposits, supported by a CCTV survey team, whose HD-quality video camera also allowed progress to be monitored.