A resilience framework for safety management of fossil fuel power plant

This paper investigates safety management of the fossil fuel power plants from a resilient perspective; we identified the principles for embedding resilience in fossil fuel power plants by considering both system characteristics and attributes of fossil fuel power plants. Then, a two-dimensional matrix framework is provided to guide resilience management. The first dimension is principles that a resilient system shall possess (“top management commitment,” “flexibility,” “awareness” and “learning”), the other dimension covers almost all the aspects that a fossil fuel power plant could involve. After that, a case study of “China Guodian Harbin Taiping Power and Heat Co., Ltd” is given to illustrate the application of the framework. Through the analysis, we found that physical configuration is of high-level resilience, i.e., the “hardware part” of the plant is desirable. However, elements related to external and internal cognitive and social domains are not ideal. Most of the components are of low resilience or medium resilience. Generally, as a state-owned enterprise, “Taiping power plant” is subjected to both the local economic environment and its lack of initiative.