Gas

This May, following two years of construction, Siemens Energy put into operation Irsching 5, an 847-MW advanced combined-cycle power plant near Ingolstadt, Germany. The plant’s owner, Gemeinschaftskraftwerke Irsching GmbH—a joint venture of E.ON, Mainova, and HEAG Südhessische Energie—features two SGT5-4000F gas turbines, one SST5-5000 steam turbine, three hydrogen-cooled generators, electrical systems, and Siemens’ SPPA-T3000 instrumentation and control system.

When heat exchanger tubes—sometimes numbering a thousand or more per unit—begin to crack or wear, the effects can lead to a cascade of subsequent failures in adjacent tubes. If too many tubes are plugged, heat exchanger effectiveness is compromised, and power generation may be curtailed. If conventional mechanical plugs are used, they can break loose, leak, and fail. At that point, the replacement of a very costly heat exchanger is imminent.

Power plant operators, especially those located in countries with enforceable carbon emissions standards, are concerned about their CO₂ emissions. But for Helsingin Energia—which provides power, heating, and cooling for Helsinki, Finland’s 300,000 residents—the main concern is local warming, not global warming. In Helsinki, temperatures on midsummer afternoons only reach an average 21C, and for half the year daytime temperatures are below 10C.

Stacks at power generating stations may be low maintenance, but they are not no maintenance. The cost of preventing corrosion may be as little as $10,000, but the cost of repair or replacement could be many times that or even put your plant out of commission until the stack problem is corrected.

Luminant used remnants of the ill-fated Twin Oaks and Forest Grove plants (which were mothballed more than 30 years ago) to build the new two-unit 1,600-MW Oak Grove Plant. Though outfitted with equipment from those old plants, Oak Grove also sports an array of modern air quality control equipment and is the nation’s first 100% lignite-fired plant to adopt selective catalytic reduction for NO_x control and activated carbon sorbent injection technology to remove mercury. For melding two different steam generators into a single project, adopting a unique and efficient “push-pull” fuel delivery system, assembling a tightly integrated team that completed the project on time and within budget, and for completing what was started almost four decades ago, Oak Grove Power Plant is awarded POWER magazine’s 2010 Plant of the Year award.

Eliminate waste in coal, gas, or nuclear power plant construction through a holistic application of lean principles.

The gas-rich emirate of Qatar, holder the world’s third-largest gas reserves, inaugurated another massive 2,000-MW gas power plant in the industrial city of Mesaieed, south of the capital Doha this May.

The gas-rich emirate of Qatar, holder the world’s third-largest gas reserves, inaugurated another massive 2,000-MW gas power plant in the industrial city of Mesaieed, south of the capital Doha this May.

It’s no surprise that China leads the world in recent power capacity additions. What may surprise you is the precise mix of options this vast country is relying upon to meet its ever-growing demand for electricity. As a result, this ancient civilization is fast becoming the test bed and factory for the newest generation and transmission technologies.

At the opening ELECTRIC POWER 2010 plenary session, both the keynote speaker’s address and discussion among the Power Industry Executive Roundtable participants pointed to the renewed appeal of natural gas and proposed cap-and-trade legislation as being potential game-changers for the U.S. power industry.