In This Issue
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O&MManaging software life-cycle issues
Software ranges from shrink-wrapped products available “off the shelf” to custom corporate implementations of enterprise systems that require sessions with shrinks to keep everyone sane. Regardless of its complexity, every piece of software a plant uses, or interfaces to, poses critical issues that require life-cycle management. Although functionality has always been the chief specification for software, plants must pay far more attention to long-term quality issues. These two concerns are often at odds with each other.
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HydroNew workshop completes first overhaul
In early August, a special transport departed from Voith Siemens Hydro’s Heidenheim workshop bearing the company’s 300-ton, 300-MVA hydro motor-generator back to Schluchseewerk AG’s Wehr pumped-storage station in Germany’s Black Forest.
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CoalFinessing fuel fineness
Most of today’s operating coal plants began service at least a generation ago and were designed to burn eastern bituminous coal. A switch to Powder River Basin coal can stress those plants’ boiler systems, especially the pulverizers, beyond their design limits and cause no end of operational and maintenance problems. Many of those problems are caused by failing to maintain good fuel fineness when increasing fuel throughput.
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SolarScorching asphalt and solar power
Through asphalt, researchers are looking to develop a solar collector that could turn roads and parking lots into ubiquitous—and inexpensive—sources of electricity and hot water.
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O&MRepairing low-pressure rotors with cracked blade attachments
An increasing number of low-pressure steam turbines—especially at supercritical fossil units—have experienced stress corrosion cracking in the blade attachment region of their low-pressure rotors. Approaches to solving this problem range from redesign of the attachment and blade replacement to in-situ weld repair. Regardless of the procedure selected, the solution must completely restore the turbine performance while minimizing outage duration.
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Business
POWER digest (October 2008)
News items of interest to power industry professionals. EDF and CGNPG create joint venture for Taishan nukes. Électricité de France (EDF) and the China Guangdong Nuclear Power Group (CGNPG) on Aug. 10 finalized a framework agreement made earlier, in November 2007, and formally created a joint venture company to build and operate two evolutionary pressurized […]
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CoalTS Power Plant, Eureka County, Nevada
Top Plant: Not all coal-fired power plants are constructed by investor-owned utilities or independent power producers selling to wholesale markets. When Newmont Mining Corp. recognized that local power supplies were inadequate and too expensive to meet long-term electricity needs for its major gold- and copper-mining operations in northern Nevada, it built its own generation. What’s more, Newmont’s privately owned 200-MW net coal-fired plant features power plant technologies that will surely become industry standards. Newmont’s investment in power and technology is also golden: The capital cost will be paid back in about eight years.
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CoalComputer simulation as a NOx reduction design tool
A utility evaluated various methods of obtaining a NOx reduction of at least 30%, as required by upcoming regulations for its boiler, which originally produced 0.54 lb of NOx/million Btu at 410 MW full load. Nalco Mobotec engineers performed a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation of the boiler to first understand the boiler’s combustion process and then determine the most economical method to achieve the required NOx reduction.
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BusinessThe return of compressed air energy storage
Faced with soaring energy prices, researchers and developers worldwide are giving compressed air energy storage (CAES)—a technology almost 50 years old—a dusting, a spit shine, and a new life. In particular, they see it as a critical component for the dispatch of wind and other renewable power. The technology, which involves storing off-peak-generated energy in […]
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NewsDouble duty flowmeter
As fluid passes through Exact Flow’s new DX-DL dual-rotor turbine flowmeter, the dual rotors become hydraulically coupled due to their counter-rotation. Not only does this allow the rotors to overcome the inertia and drag that typically affect single-rotor turbine flowmeters, it also extends the flow range to 500:1—five times the 100:1 flow range of a […]