POWER

The first problem with high renewable penetration is that wind and solar are not dispatchable.

Dominion’s 585-MW Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center, located in southwestern Virginia, relies on two circulating fluidized bed boilers that burn coal and local waste coal mixed with up to 20% biomass. The project also features one of the industry’s largest air-cooled condenser systems to minimize the plant’s water usage. The $1.8 billion project entered commercial service July 10, on budget and on schedule

There’s plenty of uncertainty in gas-fired power these days, with low prices and impending coal plant retirements. Even so, many generators are forging ahead with some ambitious projects and plans for the future.

This is the sixth in a series of predictive maintenance (PdM) articles that began in the April 2011 “Focus on O&M” in which the essentials of PdM were introduced. In this occasional segment, we have explored specific PdM techniques, such as motor-current signature analysis, oil analysis and thermographic analysis and their routine use, and ultrasonic and vibration analysis. In this issue we look at lubricating oil wear-particle analysis.

The insatiable power demands of a huge modern metropolitan area like Seoul call for both big thinking and flexibility. The successful launch of this large, state-of-the-art supercritical coal plant required adapting to unforeseen changes in fuel supply while meeting highly restrictive environmental controls. The resulting high-availability facility is a POWER Top Plant

Natural gas is poised to revolutionize how the United States uses energy, but only if government and industry leaders seize the opportunities it offers.

A chronic operational problem with circulating fluidized bed boilers is ash buildup or agglomeration that turns into slag, which forces frequent shutdowns for cleaning. Solving the problem is tricky, because combustion efficiency relies on good fuel quality, but the best fuel for efficiency may not be the best fuel for minimizing furnace and tube fouling and ash plugging.

Many environmental groups are calling for a ban on hydraulic fracturing and are even lobbying to end natural gas development altogether. The Environmental Defense Fund is not. The EDF energy program chief counsel explains why.

The fate of coal-fired generation remains fluid as owners weigh environmental rules, the effect of low natural gas prices, and the shifting cost of investing in emissions control technology. An analysis of generating unit data suggests that smaller, older, less-efficient, and less-frequently dispatched assets are most vulnerable to retirements. Recently accelerated retirement dates for some units indicate that economic factors are a more important determining factor than pending environmental mandates

Current low gas prices offer a unique opportunity to lock in savings for years to come—but only if utilities, gas suppliers, and regulators have the vision to commit to a new way of doing business.

China’s five largest power generators own half of that country’s power generating assets. Faulty policies and the rapidly changing global economy have made it difficult for these companies to fulfill the high expectations arising from enactment of the Power System Reform Scheme of 2002

The latest Environmental Protection Agency mercury control limits in the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards present a significant technical challenge to the power industry. Shaw offers a cost-effective process that promotes mercury oxidation and removal in fossil fuel combustion applications that can potentially achieve consistent mercury oxidation above 95%. Shaw’s E&I Group EMO technology provides the industry with an alternative to halogen salt addition and activated carbon injection that can also be used to augment the performance of existing Hg control applications and strategies

Growing hothouse tomatoes might not be the first application that comes to mind for a natural gas–fueled combustion engine, but that’s exactly what an innovative grower in Southern California is doing, with some help from General Electric (GE).

Upcoming revisions to U.S. federal effluent guidelines are anticipated to include new discharge limits for mercury and selenium in flue gas desulfurization wastewater, in addition to other potential revisions. Collaborative R&D is helping inform the rulemaking and is evaluating the cost and performance of technology options that might be used to meet the new targets.

Relatively simple upgrades to legacy turbine systems can yield big payoffs in efficiency and reduced maintenance.

In 2010, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed federal rules regulating coal combustion residuals (CCRs) for the first time to address the risks posed by coal-fired power plants’ disposal of such waste byproducts. The need for new regulations remains a topic of debate, heightened by the EPA’s reticence to release the rule. The EPA says that it will release the new rule by the end of this year–over two years late.

Cato Institute senior fellows Jerry Taylor and Peter Van Doren in an Aug. 31 Forbes website blog suggest that the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) carbon pollution standard for new coal-fired power plants (Standard) is a meaningless skirmish in President Obama’s “war on coal.” The Standard may have no tangible impact on the industry in the future, but it has great strategic benefit to the administration.

Pepperl+Fuchs’ new KFU8-VCR-1 Transmitter Power Supply Signal Conditioners feature various inputs for standard voltage and current inputs. These 1-channel signal conditioners offer maximum installation flexibility to suit a wide range of application needs. Input and output signal ranges are selected by switches located on the front of the device. This enables fast, easy setup and […]

A bill introduced by U.S. Reps. John Tierney and Ed Markey on Wednesday could prevent the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) from granting operating license renewals to reactor owners that apply more than 10 years before a current facility license expires.

Cyber attacks on the utility industry are no longer theoretical. According to multiple sources, smart grid technology vendor Telvent told U.S., Canadian, and Spanish customers on Sept. 10 that hackers had broken through its firewall and accessed “project files” related to its OASyS SCADA system. On Wednesday, reports surfaced that, based on the perpetrators’ “digital fingerprints,” the attack appears to be the work of a well-known Chinese hacker group.

Low natural gas prices and still-soft electricity demand are forcing low-load and cycling operations at traditionally baseloaded coal units across the country. The resulting challenges were top of mind at the Electric Utility Cost Group’s (EUCG’s) fall meeting in Denver last week. One member of the EUCG’s fossil generation committee from an Ohio Valley utility said that cycling and low-load operations pose challenges for one of his company’s 1,300-MW coal-fired plants that “two years ago we wouldn’t have considered possible.”

Florida Power & Light (FPL) on Monday got the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC’s) approval to increase power¬¬¬ output of St. Lucie Unit 2 by 17%, from 853 MWe to 1,002 MWe. The regulator had in July approved a similar uprate for St. Lucie Unit 1, and its decision on Monday means FPL can fully proceed with its $3 billion plan to boost nuclear output and save on future fossil fuel costs.

An inspection has shown that loss of offsite power at the Wolf Creek nuclear power plant near Burlington, Kan., in January had substantial safety significance and will result in additional inspections and regulatory oversight, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) said on Friday.

Exelon’s 852-MW Three Mile Island Generating Station near Harrisburg, Pa., on Thursday automatically tripped owing to a flux to flow imbalance of the "C" reactor coolant pump, a filing with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) shows.

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) last week approved a deal involving the state’s major utilities and renewable energy advocates that is  aimed at streamlining the process for connecting distributed generation (DG) resources to the grid. The CPUC’s action will make it easier for small amounts of distributed resources—such as rooftop solar photovoltaic (PV) systems—to connect to the grid. The agreement also revises upward the amount of DG that can be connected to a specific power line segment without the need for supplemental studies.

A license issued by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) on Tuesday greenlights operation of a proposed plant that will use laser technology to enrich uranium for fuel in commercial nuclear power reactors. If built as proposed on a 1,600-acre site at General Electric–Hitachi Global Laser Enrichment’s (GLE’s) global headquarters in Wilmington, N.C., where GLE currently operates a fuel fabrication plant, the facility would be one of two new enrichment plants expected to be operational by 2020, even though several others have received NRC approval and federal government funding.

In its last legislative act before the November election, the U.S. House of Representatives on Friday passed by a vote of 233 to 175 the controversial "Stop the War on Coal Act," a legislative package of measures that seeks to bar the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from promulgating carbon emission rules, calls for an analysis of the cumulative economic impacts of certain environmental rules, and would create a state-based program to regulate coal ash.

By Thomas W. Overton, JD As unlikely as it might have seemed a few months ago, recent developments in the ongoing saga over the beleaguered San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) have begun to raise the previously unthinkable possibility that the plant may never restart. Publicly, of course, the authorities are saying nothing of the […]

Dominion Virginia Power plans to convert its oldest coal-fired power plant, the 227-MW Bremo Power Station near Bremo Bluff, Va., to natural gas, the company announced earlier this month. The two-unit plant would be the ninth in its fleet to be closed or converted to alternative fuels.