Dear H. Lawrence (CEO, GE)
Kelanitissa Combined Cycle Power Station of Ceylon Electricity Board Sri Lanka is one of the
major thermal power plant which is composed GE frame 9E gas turbine , a GE HRSG(former
Hanjung) and a GE gas turbine (former Alstom). As a general practice of the power plant
major repair works are being done by OEMs , authorized distributors with the guidance of
accredited technical advisors with an exception of few occasions.
The Generator Circuit Breakers (GCB) of Steam Turbine Generator (STG) and Gas Turbine
Generator (GTG) are also Alstom of which the regional authorized distribution ship is hold
by Minell Laka and GE T&D India. The GCBs are regularly being tested by our condition
monitoring engineers under standard test methodes standadised by IEC or IEEE. Recently
they have found that there is a rebounding issue at the closing and it may be possibly caused
by wear and tear of breaker contacts. Therefore we immediately requested the opinion from
our nearest GE accredited distributor ( Minel Lanka) and they claimed that they are not is
position to comment on the condition monitoring reports which were prepared by
accredited electrical engineers under international guidelines with fully calibrated and
accredited equipment (Omnicrom). However we accepted it since GE and its conglomates
can be a trusted and reliable equipment manufactures and they are maintain a huge fleet of
similar electrical equipments and we decided to commit the 20 year over haul with the
intention of rectifying the rebounding issue. Therefore the need of rectifying the issue was
implicitly added to the guaranteed technical particulars of the original bidding document.
But when the bid was submitted by the GE’s local channel partner they had not clearly
mention it and a clarification was called from them . Then they have claimed that the issu is
not rectified according to the offered proposal with some documents of GE claiming that the
old mannuals of the Alsotom is not correct and now they have revised the technical
mannaula. But until now we have not received any (Technical Information Letters) TILs, or
any notification related this and still referring to the old mannuals of ALtom. If they are a
responsible channel partner of GE they should have enough details prior to bidding without
wasting the time and money of their client. In the coming Combined cycle power projects of
Sri Lanka we have recommended the Circuit Breakers of the same kind since they have
shown trouble free operation for a long time with minor maintances. But how can we trust
on the after sale service provided by local channel partners.
According to the local channel partner, they are not going to rectify the rebounding issue,
and within another several years we have to go for another major maintance with a
exorbitant cost to rectify the same. This is unethical and this is not what we expect from a
local partner of GE liked organization.
Since Minel Lanka has been authorized by you , we are unable to directly hire technicala
adivisers from France or any other respective organization.
We did not anticipate such a poor customer service from either GE or its local channel
Partner Minel Lanka. We wish to place on record our strong dissatisfaction and displeasure
over the response from your local channel partner.
I strongly request your direct involvement in this regards and consider attending to rectify
the rebounding issue of the GCB without going for a second outage after the major overhaul
of 20 years.
Dhammike Wimalaratne
Chief_Engineer
Kelanitissa Combined Cycle Power Station
Ceylon Electricity Board
New Kelani Bridge Road
Kolonnawa 10600
Sri Lanka