Gas

Xcel Energy has completed the third and final project required by its 2003 Metropolitan Emissions Reduction Project agreement: repowering the Riverside Plant with a gas-fired 2 x 1 combined-cycle plant and tearing down the old coal-fired plant. Saved from demolition was the Unit 7 steam turbine system that now serves the new plant. Xcel staff expertly managed the project to an on-time start-up and accepted many important construction tasks, harkening back to the days when utilities took a more active role in the design and construction of projects.

At Royal Pride Holland’s commercial tomato greenhouse, green thumbs and green energy go hand in hand. With a total energy utilization of 95% in this application, GE’s new Jenbacher J624 natural gas – fired engines offer the innovative greenhouse an economical supply of on-site electrical and thermal power, as well as CO₂ fertilization, to support its operations.

Uncertainty about CO₂ emissions legislation is prompting power plant owners to consider the possibility of accommodating "add-on" CO₂ capture and sequestration solutions for coal-fired plants in the future. Those same plant owners may be overlooking the possibility that future natural gas – fired combined cycles will also be subject to CO₂ capture requirements. This month we examine the capture options. In a future issue, Part II will present the installation and operating costs of different carbon capture technologies.

Over the past decade, the development of new natural gas – fired generating assets has been similar to an amusement park roller coaster ride — very high peaks and the lowest of lows, with fast and stomach-churning movement between. Expect the ride to continue into the near future.

One key area at the 800-MW Michoud power station where O&M excellence is evident is in maintaining plant water quality.

The Edward W. Clark Generating Station, which has supplied electricity to the Las Vegas Strip for more than half a century, has learned the secret of life in the desert: adaptability. The plant’s early years featured conventional steam plants operated around the clock. By mid-life, Clark had been upgraded with two combustion turbine combined-cycle power blocks operated as intermediate-load resource. Today, the old steam plants have been replaced with fast-start peaking gas turbines.

The Hague’s century-old power plant, now owned by E.ON, provides electricity to the local grid and thermal energy for the city’s district heating system. Poor performance from the plant’s 25-year-old equipment and The Hague’s wish to become a carbon-neutral city by 2010 gave birth to the idea of repowering the existing plant. For protecting a historic building while investing in low-emissions electricity generation, achieving improved plant efficiency and reliability, and accelerating the project so the plant could be back online for the next heating season, The Hague Repowering Project is the winner of POWER’s 2009 Marmaduke Award for excellence in O&M. The award is named for Marmaduke Surfaceblow, the fictional marine engineer and plant troubleshooter par excellence.

If a number of technical, financial, and regulatory hurdles can be overcome, power generated by integrated gasification combined-cycle technology could become an important source for U.S. utilities. Our overview presents diverse perspectives from three industry experts about what it will take to move this technology off the design table and into the field.

To supplement domestic natural gas supplies, the U.S. is expected to increase its dependence on offshore liquefied natural gas suppliers in the coming years. However, the composition and hydrocarbon content of imported LNG may significantly vary from those of North American sources. Variation in fuel composition may lead to plants using fuel that violates their combustion turbine fuel specifications and may cause operational problems.