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A record 400 attendees participated in KEMA’s 22nd annual Executive Forum in San Antonio, Texas, in late April to debate and discuss the “retail resurgence” of competitive electricity sweeping America.

Following the conclusion of the KEMA conference (see previous story), Mark Axford had the opportunity to talk with Phillip Tonge, recently appointed president of Spark Energy LP. Spark Energy is a retail energy provider (REP) of electricity and natural gas in 16 states that have opened their markets to competition for industrial, commercial, or residential customers.

This installment of the series continues our review of different conditioning-monitoring techniques commonly in use at power plants using any generation technology. In the May issue we began exploring specific PdM techniques with an examination of electrical surge comparison and motor-current signature analysis.

It may seem counterintuitive, but the strategic coupling of simple- and combined- cycle technologies with renewable generation could establish the conditions necessary for adding more renewable megawatts to transmission grids around the world.

Underground coal gasification (UCG) is the gasification of coal in-situ, which involves drilling boreholes into the coal and injecting water/air or water/oxygen mixtures. It combines an extraction process and a conversion process into one step, producing a high-quality, affordable synthetic gas, which can be used for power generation. Still in the early stage of commercialization, UCG is poised to become a future major contributor to the energy mix in countries around the world.

When President Obama unveiled his “clean energy standard” in the 2011 State of the Union address in February, and again when he spoke of his administration’s energy policy in late March, one form of electrical energy was conspicuous by its absence: hydropower. Hydro is the forgotten form, the politically incorrect renewable, the invisible generation. To borrow the complaint of comedian and Caddyshack movie star Rodney Dangerfield, hydro projects “don’t get no respect.”

Four concrete cooling towers at a coal-fired electrical generation plant exhibited reinforcing steel corrosion that was causing concrete deterioration. This case study follows the repairs to those towers—how the corrosion control solution was selected, how repairs were made, and how follow-up tests found the repairs to be effective three years later.

David K. Owens, executive vice president, Business Operations Group for the Edison Electric Institute, comments on the progress U.S. utilities are making toward a smarter electrical power grid.

After the 2008 incident involving the failure of a large surface impoundment containing wet coal ash, the EPA began investigating all coal-fired power plants employing this wet coal ash management method. Now a new dry ash management technology offers coal-fired power plants an environmentally suitable alternative for handling coal ash that also increases energy efficiency.

Since 1972, titanium-tubed power plant surface condensers have been providing corrosion-free service. Recent process advances are making the material suitable for even more applications.