After signing of the agreement, HOMS will be responsible for the overall operation and maintenance of the Plant.  In addition, HOMS will also be responsible for other activities related to the operation and maintenance of the plant.
The scope of services would include, but not limited to,

• Regular operation and maintenance
• Periodic Inspection and maintenance
• Curative Inspection and maintenance
• Maintaining highest plant availability
• Compliance with the provisions in PPA and other statutory requirements
• Providing monthly availability declaration to NEA and billing
• Maintaining sufficient stock of spare parts
• Participating in Coordination Meeting with NEA
• Procurement of services, tools, equipment and spare parts as and when required
• Half yearly patrolling of transmission line and maintenance as required
• Regular inspection and maintenance of the substation at the receiving end of the transmission line
• Regular reporting to the Project Company’s representatives
• Reporting to other stakeholders as required
• Maintaining cordial relation with NEA, local authorities and other stakeholders
• Maintaining records of all correspondence with government authorities, local bodies, stakeholders
• Maintaining up to date records of accounts
• Maintaining cleanliness of the powerhouse, headworks and the housing area

Systematic operation and maintenance procedures will be adopted for plants operation. By adopting following approach, we believe the operation of the plant can be optimized.

• Operating conditions will be continuously monitored and recorded to diagnose the causes of equipment faults, failures and replacements and to determine residual lifespan.
• As built drawings, description of civil structure, electrical system, mechanical system and equipment shall be compiled in both soft and hard copy for reference.  A copy of different software and passwords used in different systems shall be obtained from EM supplier and stored properly. Plant manager, Operation and maintenance managers shall be trained and acquainted with different aspects of software used in the plant.
• Timely preventive maintenance schedule covering all vital areas and plants will be adopted based on guidelines of O & M manuals and OEM recommendation to minimize breakdown and forced outage.
• Each failure/tripping occurrence will be questioned and recorded with basic three questions like: why this occurred, how this occurred & what is to be done to avoid its reoccurrence to reduce failure rate to the greater extent. Standard filing system will be maintained to store soft copy and hard copy of these records.
• When a part of equipment must be replaced due to breakdown or the end of its useful lifespan, it will be replaced with an improved version of the latest technology whenever available.
• Procurement of equipment spares, fast moving items will be planned based on actual rate of consumption & recommendations of OEM’s.
• Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) will be used for Maintenance and inventory management. HOMS is the owner of a customized software which is proposed to be used in the O&M activities.
• Regular condition monitoring of equipment will be done in consultation with the Project Company by an independent service provider.

HOMS will try to maximize the production with available resources and above approach. By regular inspection and maintenance, major problem can be avoided at an early stage. The guiding principle would be to keep the machines and equipment in good condition and minimize downtime.
Planning and reporting will be a major part of the operation and maintenance activities. Various check-lists and inspection routines will be prepared for different machines. Regular site visit by in-house experts, external consultants and supplier’s experts will be arranged to see if there are any issues that needs intervention. Planning and monitoring reports will be prepared and discussed with the Project Company regularly.
Optimum number of staff will be maintained throughout the organization. The staff will have different expertise required for the operation of the plant.
 
Training
Training and capacity building of staff to existing and new technology will be an integral part of the O&M activities. Experts will be invited to the Plant to train the staff to improve operation strategy, maintenance and reporting. The staff will also be sent for ‘on the job training’ to different plant to learn from the experience.

Computerized Maintenance Management System
In recent years, small hydropower projects are also adopting Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) which were earlier used only by medium and large sized hydropower projects. The system gives the power plant operators information on routine inspection and maintenance. Likewise, job order will be generated for routine maintenance and special orders will be prepared if some corrective maintenance needs to be done. Required data on generation, maintenance can be maintained on CMMS. This will allow proper recording of event and activities which can be very much helpful in fault finding, trouble shooting, gathering historical knowledge and planning.

HOMS, with experience on Operation and Maintenance of plants and using commercial softwares, have developed a CMMS and plans to use it for the Suri Khola Project. It is an internet based system integrated with SCADA which will allow anyone to view the records and status in realtime from any part of the world. Some system is server based which stores the data in local server. The internet based system will allow the stakeholder to view relevant information. In local server, there is possibility of data getting lost if the server gets damaged. However, the internet based system will be more reliable as the data is backup is kept at multiple locations on a cloud based system.

The software is a completely integrated maintenance and facilities asset management system, enabling us to save time and money.

• Generate work orders.
• Schedule preventive maintenance tasks.
• Organize and track inventory.
• Manage equipment costs.
• Track equipment history.
• Requisition and purchase parts.
• Project equipment failures.