Energy and utilities

Hydro power plants

In a hydro unit, bearing pad temperature read against load and runner acoustics give the first warning, well before vibration limits.

In operation

Request the private demo The five failure modes Download the brief (PDF)

The failures that matter

Five components, in order of impact.

Sibilla has Blueprints in operation for each of these. For every one: how it fails, what announces it, how early you can see it, and what it costs you.

  1. 1

    Guide and thrust bearings: wear, loss of oil film

    Downtime Cost

    Contamination, misalignment or shaft instability thin the oil film and wear the white metal. Pad temperature rises against load before vibration changes.

    Signals
    Shaft relative vibration (proximity probes), bearing housing vibration, pad and oil temperature against load, oil level and quality.
    Typical warning time
    Weeks to months as a trend; hours if lubrication is lost suddenly. (indicative)
    Teneuro
    Yes. Housing vibration and acoustics. Shaft relative vibration usually comes from the existing protection system.
  2. 2

    Runner: cavitation, efficiency loss

    Downtime Cost

    Low pressure on the blades forms vapour bubbles that collapse and erode the metal. Eroded profiles lower efficiency at the same head and flow.

    Signals
    Acoustic emission and high-frequency vibration on casing and draft tube, pressure pulsations, efficiency drop at equal head and flow.
    Typical warning time
    Months to years for erosion. (indicative)
    Teneuro
    Yes. Acoustics is where Teneuro is strongest.
  3. 3

    Generator stator: winding overheating

    Downtime Cost

    Fouled coolers or reduced cooling air raise winding temperature. Heat ages the insulation and brings winding faults closer.

    Signals
    Winding temperatures (RTDs) against load, cooling air temperatures.
    Typical warning time
    Months to years, as insulation ages. (indicative)
    Teneuro
    No. Temperatures come from the plant control system. Partial discharge needs dedicated sensors.
  4. 4

    Governor: hydraulic power unit faults

    Downtime Safety/Env

    Leaks, worn pumps and accumulators losing pre-charge make the unit run more often and respond more slowly. The governor closes the wicket gates, and its oil sits close to the water.

    Signals
    Accumulator pressure and recharge time, oil pump cycles, wicket gate position against command, oil temperature.
    Typical warning time
    Days to weeks. (indicative)
    Teneuro
    Partly. Governor and SCADA data are often enough. Teneuro helps on auxiliary pumps and motors.
  5. 5

    Spiral case: clogging

    Downtime

    Debris carried by the water builds up in the spiral case and stay vanes, raising losses and reducing output at the same head.

    Signals
    Spiral case pressure, flow and power against gate opening and head.
    Typical warning time
    Gradual, depending on the debris in the water. (indicative)
    Teneuro
    No. Pressure, flow and gate position already come from the plant control system.

Also relevant

Outside the five above: not covered by a Blueprint today, we can work on them as a project.

  • Generator rotor: air gap changes, eccentricity, loose poles.
  • Stator insulation: partial discharge.
  • Shaft seal: leaks and wear.

Systems and connectors

What we usually find in the plant, and how we read it.

Read-only, without touching the machines. Three levels, stated plainly: Native, 1-day activation, Project-based.

SystemViaLevelPrerequisite
AVEVA PIPI Web APINative Read access to the customer's PI server.
Vibration CMS with data in AVEVA PIAVEVA PINative —
Plant SCADA with OPC UAOPC UA1-day activation OPC UA interface enabled on the plant SCADA.
Andritz HIPASE, plant PLCsModbus TCP1-day activation —
Bently Nevada System 1OPC or Modbus1-day activation —
Governors and automation on IEC 61850 or IEC 60870-5-104GatewayProject-based —

Trademarks belong to their respective owners and indicate technical compatibility only.

Limits

Where predictive maintenance does not pay off.

  • Micro-hydro with very low power and cheap spares.
  • Units that run few hours a year, where calendar maintenance is still reasonable.

There, good preventive maintenance costs less. We will tell you before we start.

Standards

The references we work with.

ISO 20816-5
Vibration evaluation for hydro and pumped-storage units: limits on amplitude and on its changes.
IEC 61850-7-410
Communication and data model for hydro plant automation.
ISO 14224
Taxonomy of components and failure modes behind the Sibilla ontology.
KKS / RDS-PP
Plant coding, used to map tags to components and failure modes.

Our solutions on this asset

Sibilla

Blueprints in operation on the five components above: KDIs, expected degradation patterns, links to the fault tree.

Discover Sibilla →

Teneuro

Where the data is not there: vibration and sound, fieldbuses and the signals of silent machines, sent to Sibilla.

Discover Teneuro →

Before Plasmiam, our team designed and ran predictive maintenance for a major international utility: more than 1,000 power plants in 22 countries and over 40 GW of installed capacity, starting from hydro. That experience shaped Teneuro, designed, built and patented by Plasmiam to bring vibration monitoring to large fleets of small plants at a low cost per point.

Tell us what you run. We'll show you how it fails and when you'd notice.

Request the private demo Share it with your team (PDF)

Sources

Last updated 3 October 2026. Warning times are indicative orders of magnitude from literature and practice: they depend on the duty profile and are validated on your fleet.