[File Photo]

High-powered maintenance is taking place at Fiji Pine Limited’s power turbines in Drasa, Lautoka.

This will enable the company to meet the demands of all its electrical and energy operations and also four to five percent of Viti Levu’s power supply at the national grid.

A team of experts from Australia and India worked with Tropik Wood Industries’ senior managers and technicians to do the annual 2023/24 “planned maintenance” on the high-powered generator.

The last maintenance check was done in 2020.

Tropik engineers found a system collapse in the main turbines.

Tropik’s Chief Engineer Co-gen, Conrad Kumar says the generator, which supplies electricity to the entire operations at Drasa, and the main grid was inspected, dismantled and serviced by Melbourne-based Sulzer Australia Pty Limited last month.

Kumar says Sulzer completed its scope and the unit was installed on the 19th of January, 2014.

They had authorised its use in mid-January after carrying out another high-voltage test.

However, Kumar says they have now found technical problems with the internal controls system.

He says they are now in the process of removing all of the internals that require repair to send them to Melbourne.

Kumar says repairs will take at least 17 weeks and they hope to get the system back by July.

He says Fiji Pine’s backup plan includes tests on its smaller generator where the turbine and controls have under gone refurbishment since 2020.