Industrial Fire Protection (in the Power Plant Environment)

Dennis Kovach from American Electric Power joined us to discuss Industrial Fire Protection in the Power Plant Environment.

Dennis Kovach is the Lead Fire Protection Engineer within AEP Service Corporation’s Generation Engineering Services department. His current responsibilities include providing fire protection engineering support for approximately forty power plants and coal-handling facilities across eleven states in the AEP system.   Mr. Kovach has served on the Ohio State Fire Marshal’s Smoke Alarm Advisory Task Force, and has represented the Edison Electric Institute as a member of NFPA’s Technical Committee on Gas Process Safety, responsible for NFPA 56, Standard for Fire and Explosion Prevention During Cleaning and Purging of Flammable Gas Piping Systems.   Dennis is also a volunteer firefighter/EMT and fire inspector with the Monroe Township Fire Department in Licking County, Ohio.  

Presentation Blurb:

“More often than not, industrial facilities are an afterthought when fire and building codes are being developed.  For non-nuclear power plants there are two recommended practices (NFPA 850 and 851) and one standard (NFPA 853) available for protecting these hazards, yet few jurisdictions adopt those documents.  As a result, performance-based designs and code variance requests are standard practices in the utility industry. 

 This presentation will look at several examples of design challenges and code conflicts experienced by a typical energy company.   Case studies involving egress, sprinkler coverage, fire alarm signal transmission, and hazardous area classification will all be explored.  The presentation will also look at what challenges lay ahead as the electric utility industry‘s fuel mix continues to evolve.” 

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