British Energy has been supplied with a custom-built valve actuator training rig as part of a recently signed framework agreement for the service and repair of electric, hydraulic and pneumatic actuators at all nine of its UK power stations. The framework contract, which will run for five years, was exclusively awarded to actuation maintenance specialist Exeeco, a Rotork group company with more than twenty-five years of service experience on British Energy sites. The valve actuator training rig has been designed and manufactured by Exeeco engineers and installed at British Energy’s Hartlepool Training Centre. Hartlepool Power Station operates with numerous electric actuators from various manufacturers, all of which demand periodic maintenance, fault-finding, testing and commissioning. An on-going training assessment identified that a site specific actuator training rig would be of great assistance to the station’s maintenance technicians. To meet this requirement the rig is permanently equipped with two actuators from Rotork’s product range and a proprietary valvemaker’s actuator. As a result of the success of the actuator training rig at Hartlepool, British Energy is now considering ordering similar rigs for its Torness, Heysham and Dungeness sites.
