Legal & Regulatory

GE Executive Markhoff Talks About the Water/Energy Nexus

During IHS CERAWeek in Houston in early March, POWER Editor Gail Reitenbach sat down with Heiner Markhoff, president and CEO of GE Power & Water’s Water & Process Technologies, to ask him about several issues of concern to power plants.

Source: POWER

During IHS CERAWeek in Houston in early March, POWER Editor Gail Reitenbach sat down with Heiner Markhoff, president and CEO of GE Power & Water’s Water & Process Technologies, to ask him about several issues of concern to power plants. 

Though the “water/energy nexus” theme has gained prominence recently, Heiner Markhoff’s comments underscored the fact that water and energy have always been interconnected and that the focus on one or the other shifts, based on geography and changing operating contexts. Indeed, since 2008, GE’s water business has been integrated with its power business, largely because of the  “nexus” between the two. As Markhoff noted, “You need water in almost every type of power generation technology . . . and there are a lot of power needs for water treatment and water transportation.” There’s also a large overlap in the customer base.

When asked whether those overlapping customers are more focused today on efficient power generation or efficient water use, Markhoff responded: “At the end of the day, in the power sector, people are power generators and power producers. It comes down to their cost per kilowatt-hour. I think when it comes to water, it’s just an input into the operation . . . that needs to be optimized.” Water use also has “a large sustainability aspect,” he added, and the availability of water “is critical to the operation of a power plant, and the scarcer it gets, the more critical water becomes.”

GE supplies “water islands” to power plants as packaged solutions. It also has a chemicals and monitoring solutions business, which is onsite in power plants in many parts of the world. Asked when he sees the power/water focus shifting in the U.S., Markhoff said, “I don’t know if I see that shifting, because [generators’] goal in life is to sell kilowatt-hours—their goal in life is to sell electricity, and water is an input for this and is something that they need to take into their equation from an input perspective as well as from a regulatory, sustainability, and environmental perspective.”

As for how seriously climate change projections factor into GE’s water and power business development plans, he said, “Climate change definitely comes into play when it comes to the energy matrix—what’s the energy mix? What kinds of generation come into play? You use a lot of water in nuclear power plants; there are high water needs on coal-fired power plants; gas is a little bit less.” When it comes to GE’s strategic planning, it takes into consideration the increase in gas plants and renewables, which have lower water needs, and that plays into how the business staffs and comes up with solutions “for power generation that’s less water-intensive.”

When asked what single water-related issue GE’s U.S. customers are concerned about in the near term, he responded: “One is water availability in the more water-scarce areas. The second is discharge regulations and heavy metal regulations. And some places we’ve built a lot of zero-liquid discharge facilities for power plants so they manage to meet the regulations on discharge.”  The top-level concern depends, he said, on the state and which degree of regulation or scarcity a generator is subject to.

Desalination is a necessary aspect of power plant development in some parts of the world, but what about its prospects in the U.S. now that this country is facing freshwater shortages in some regions? “In North America, I think you will have seawater desalination in a few different areas,” Markhoff predicted. “It’s very, very difficult to get the permits for it. Just look at California.” (The Carlsbad Desalination Project finally began construction last year—after 12 years of planning and more than six years in the state’s permitting process—and is slated for completion in 2016. See “NRG Braves Headwinds in Replacing Aging California Plant” for discussion of how this desal plant figured into the development of a combined cycle plant.)

As for future development of desalination plants in the U.S., “It’s absolutely related to water availability,” Markhoff said. “The technology is available,” but the difficulty is getting permits for desalination plants—as well as cost. It always comes down to “what is the alternative water source?”

Especially for plants anticipating upgrades or compliance with new regulations, what recent water technology developments does GE see as being the most valuable to power generators in the near term? “There are several,” Markhoff said. “One is definitely zero liquid discharge technology; it’s our selenium-removal technology for coal-fired power plants.” GE also offers different technologies related to cooling towers as well as remote 24/7 monitoring, diagnostics, and analytics for water systems that help plants operate more efficiently. GE has about 15,000 “customer assets” under monitoring across all sectors, including power generation. One advantage of such monitoring is “a much more data-based approach” because it’s constant asset protection versus periodic water analysis by plant personnel. Others include productivity, peace of mind, and early detection of problems that enables proactive protection of assets.

As for what’s ahead on the technology development front, Markhoff shared that the water side of GE Power & Water has “put a lot of effort into distributed power and supporting the distributed power base with smaller water islands.” It’s also looking at how to make its own technologies and units—especially reverse osmosis—more energy efficient.

Gail Reitenbach, PhD is POWER’s editor (@GailReit, @POWERmagazine).

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