Gas

For the past 15 years, Vietnam has enjoyed enviable gross domestic product increases, averaging 7% annually. That kind of economic growth increases power demand, but financing new capacity remains a challenge. Reaching its ambitious capacity growth goals will require Vietnam to expand its financing and vendor base, attract foreign investment, and ensure future fuel supplies in a region thick with competition for those resources.

Piping at gas-fired plants has long been cleaned using compressed natural gas because of its easy availability. The big problem? It’s also explosive. The fatal 2010 blast at the Kleen Energy plant in Connecticut began a shift toward safer alternatives such as nitrogen and compressed air that is gathering increasing momentum.

Steel mills have long recaptured flue gas from the blast furnace to generate local power and steam. But advances in gas turbine technology have taken what was a low-tech means of increasing plant efficiency and given mill owners ways to increase profits through selling electricity and greatly reducing emissions through more efficient combustion.

Surging supply and plummeting prices during 2011 have worked a sea change in America’s energy policies and use of natural gas. How long can it go on?

Timing is (almost) everything when it comes to building new power plants. Nobody knows that better than AEP, which finally got a happy ending to a story that took over a decade to complete.

The 2000s saw dramatic growth in gas-fired power generation capacity. But, surprise–this growth was also accompanied by the retirements of numerous older gas-fired plants.

The rapid growth of gas extraction by hydraulic fracturing has drawn increasing allegations of property damage and health risks. In many cases, these allegations are being followed by a wave of lawsuits.

The National Fire Protection Association has issued a new standard for gas line cleaning in response to the urgent recommendations prepared by the U.S. Chemical Safety Board.

Brazil’s power industry has long been dominated by its vast hydro resources, which historically have accounted for over 80% of the country’s generation capacity. With engineering marvels like the massive Itaipú dam and the proposed Belo Monte project, the country is a leader in the development and use of hydroelectricity on a grand scale. But as the 2001 energy crisis proved, dependence on a single source leaves the country vulnerable to severe shortages. Thanks to government programs designed to take advantage of the country’s favorable climate, Brazil is committed to diversifying its energy mix while continuing to maintain a renewable energy focus.

The Five-Year Plan is the expression of the centralized planning goals for China’s economy. The 12th Five-Year Plan, approved by the Chinese Government on March 14, 2011, established many social and economic goals, including significant expansion of the country’s power generation industry in many new directions.

The POWER editorial staff’s picks for the most significant stories of 2011.

After years of political wrangling, coal-rich Australia in November passed legislation that will require the nation’s top 500 polluters, starting in July 2012, to pay a tax at a fixed price of A$23 (US$23.50) per ton of carbon. The tax increases 2.5% annually until 2015, when an emissions trading program will begin. With the Kyoto […]

Driven by policies to limit carbon emissions, as well as government subsidies, the share of worldwide nonhydro renewable power is set to grow from just 3% in 2009 to 15% in 2035, the International Energy Agency (IEA) forecasts in its recently released World Energy Outlook 2011. Under the same scenario—which assumes that carbon pricing, explicit […]

After more than a decade debating whether to pass a carbon-limiting law, Australia’s Senate in November voted in a landmark bill that will impose a price on carbon emissions. The country, which accounts for just 1.5% of global carbon emissions, but which is the world’s highest emitter per capita because 80% of its power comes […]

The world’s steel industry is power-hungry. Using energy both to supply heat and power for plant operations and as a raw material for the production of blast furnace coke, the sector uses a major fraction of the world’s total energy consumption. China’s steel and iron sectors have been mushrooming on the back of skyrocketing demand, […]

U.S. optimism has been restored by reports of abundant, reasonably priced natural gas to fuel most new generation; however, huge gaps in the fuel delivery system (thousands of miles of pipelines are needed) will soon challenge gas plant development. Meanwhile, the cloud of sovereign debt hangs over all major capital projects in Europe, where the UK moves ahead with new nuclear projects while many of its neighbors shut the door on nuclear and struggle to finance their commitment to renewables.

Competition among gas turbine makers heated up this September as Alstom unveiled its upgraded GT24 gas turbine and corresponding 60 Hz KA24 combined cycle power plant, while Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) introduced the M701F5 gas turbine—a 50 Hz F-class gas turbine upgrade. An Upgraded GT24 Alstom’s upgraded product launches came on the heels of its […]

Stable grid operation is challenging, especially when intermittent and unpredictable renewable generation is added to the generation mix. For NorthWestern Energy, the best solution was adding fast-acting gas-fired generation to its Montana electricity grid to meet required reliability standards while replacing expensive third-party contracts for ancillary services.

South Africa is at a critical turning point. An uncertain environment for private investment, escalating electricity prices, and a lack of available power threaten South Africa’s position as an attractive investment destination for many of the country’s most important industries. Power has been placed at the forefront of the government’s agenda, but South Africa needs a collaborative effort to meet the country’s energy demands and diversify its generation portfolio in order to drive economic growth.

The need for flexible power generation has increased drastically over the past few years, particularly when integrating renewables. Another driver is seasonal peaks in demand that have become more severe as global drought conditions have reduced hydropower production. One option for addressing this need is the Siemens Energy SGT6-5000F with Shaping Power. It offers the familiar gas turbine reoptimized for increased output and higher efficiency during hot weather and for improved operating flexibility at part-load conditions.

The newest member of the 60% thermal efficiency combined cycle club is GE Energy’s FlexEfficiency 50. In an era when flexible grid operation is growing in importance, this 50 Hz, single-shaft combined cycle also holds its design point efficiency down to 87% load and features turndown to 40% of rated load.

A large swath of Southern California, parts of Arizona, and Northern Baja Mexico was blacked out on Sept. 8—leaving seven million people in the dark—after an Arizona utility worker fixing faulty equipment near Yuma reportedly tripped the 500-kV North Gila–Imperial Valley transmission line, causing the outage. The blackout prompted two units at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station to go offline, stranded many people in elevators and trains, shut down airports, cut air conditioning on a day well above 90F, and caused damages of $97 million to $118 million, according to early estimates from the National University System’s Institute for Policy Research.

In the past few years, nuclear concerns, rising oil prices, and a growing understanding of our environmental impact has given energy issues a higher profile worldwide. In this report on the Continental Nordic countries, we look at the efforts being made in much of the Nordic region to secure a sustainable energy supply for the future and at the extent to which the innovative solutions of these countries can be exported around the globe.

In our September article about the global profusion of natural gas, we based a portion of our discussion on the latest, vastly increased natural gas reserve estimates reported by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). Since our article was published, the EIA has adjusted its estimates downward. We want you to be aware of those lower recoverable reserve estimates. We also want you to know that the conclusions reached in that article do not change with the new estimates of natural gas reserves.

As utilities in California are scrambling to meet the state’s 33% renewable mandate by 2020, a 49.6-MW peaking plant in Modesto, Calif., built by Finnish firm Wärtsilä for the Modesto Irrigation District, has been commissioned to provide flexible, fast-start peaking generation to balance the state’s increase in intermittent renewable generation (Figure 4). 4. Flexible peaking. […]

Kuwait put online the first 1,400 MW of its massive 2,000-MW combined cycle gas turbine Sabiya facility in June to mitigate looming power shortages it faces each summer. The plant—Kuwait’s largest power plant and one of the largest in the Gulf region—is now operating six GE 9FA gas turbines; the remaining 600 MW are expected […]

Heat waves, droughts, and other weather and climate phenomena; economic woes; aging or inadequate infrastructure; fuel shortages. These are some of the most obvious causes that have led to record peaks in power demand or sudden drops in available capacity. The results have been sometimes debilitating load-shedding, brownouts, and blackouts around the globe this summer (and, in some cases, for much longer). Here’s an overview of which countries are affected by which difficulties. For a more detailed look at the extent of shortages and what’s causing them, visit Web Exclusives at https://www.powermag.com

A brush fire that spread and detonated explosives stored at the Evangelos Florakis naval base in Mari on the southern coast of Cyprus on July 11 killed 13 people, injured 62 others, and severely damaged the Vassilikos Power Station—an oil- and gas-fired plant that supplied almost 60% of the island nation’s power. Cyprus, which was once considered an “economic miracle,” has been battling crippling power shortages that have beleaguered its financial and tourism sectors since the blast and left it on the verge of economic collapse.

In 2010, the 2,310-MW Adapazari Power Plant achieved 99.8% availability, which is nearly 7% higher than the industry average and a global record in F-class gas turbine technology. The new turbine upgrade is helping ENKA Power bolster Turkey’s evolving economy by improving its energy sector’s efficiency and productivity.

Known for its progressive, pro-sustainability policies, the City of Tallahassee recently repowered a 30-year-old conventional steam plant unit, turning it into a new 300-MW facility. The utility redesigned the Arvah B. Hopkins Generating Station, Unit 2 as a 1 × 1 combined cycle plant in order to improve efficiency, switched the primary fuel from oil to natural gas, and thereby reduced fuel costs and emissions. The plant’s flexible design even will enable expansion to a 2 × 1 configuration when additional capacity is needed in the future.