Physical Risk Assessment for Protergia Plant

The Protergia energy complex operates since 2008. The complex includes a 334 MW Combined Heat and Power plant (CHP) and two Combined Cycle Gas Turbine plants (CCGT) with 444.5 MW and 826 MW capacities. Our team was hired by the Owner to perform an in-depth analysis of the seismic performance of the Protergia complex and provide a realistic upper-bound estimate of the total reconstruction cost considering repair and replacement of affected facilities and equipment. The results of our study helped the Owner to: (i) rationalize the insurance coverage of the plant against earthquakes, (ii) highlight critical processes and estimate business interruption, (iii) budgetize emergency response resources (that will allow quick recovery of the facility in case of a disastrous seismic event), and (iv) prioritize rehabilitation actions towards vulnerable assets and key cost-drivers. With this project our team literally exceeded the state-of-practice of traditional risk assessments in many aspects. We used a state-of-the art seismic model for assessing the earthquake exposure of the plant, we devised asset-specific fragility functions for miscellaneous structural typologies and we applied equipment-specific criteria for estimating damages/losses of E&M assets/facilities.