Features

The latest benchmarking study by the EUCG examines the technology and costs of 49 flue gas desulfurization systems currently under design or construction by 12 of the nation’s largest utilities. Although the study’s detailed results are proprietary to EUCG members that participated in it, POWER was given access to the top-level findings. To get details at the plant/unit level, you’ll have to join the EUCG and participate in the study, which is ongoing.

July 1886 POWER reported on the latest steam engine technology offered to the power generation market, this time by France. The Boulet engine (Figure 1) was described as a "French horizontal compound condensing receiver engine, having cranks at right angles, cylinders side by side, and live steam jacket. The valves are double slides, giving small […]

By design, combined HP-IP turbines have a small amount of internal leakage from the high-pressure turbine to the intermediate-pressure turbine. When turbines are new, the amount of this leakage is close to the design heat balance. But as turbines age, the leakage increases considerably, causing a heat rate penalty and possibly a reliability problem. In Part I, we explore the symptoms and causes of excessive leakage within GE steam turbines and how to correct the problem. Part II, in next month’s issue, will examine the same issues for Westinghouse and Allis-Chalmers turbines.

June 1886 POWER reported on the art and science of water treatment and its effect on boiler performance in the cover story this month. "Dr. J.G. Rogers, an authority on steam generation, is quoted as stating that one-sixteenth of an inch of scale in a boiler will require the extra consumption of 15% more fuel; […]

Chauncey Starr, founder of EPRI—the Electric Power Research Institute—and its first CEO, passed away on April 17, 2007. The previous day, a celebration of his recent 95th birthday had been held at EPRI, where Chauncey held forth for more than an hour on his life experiences and lessons learned. He was in fine fettle. Chauncey […]

At the heart of most boiler combustion control systems (and most coordinated boiler/turbine control systems as well) is throttle pressure correction, usually applied by the "master controller." Throttle pressure is considered a key variable to control because it represents the energy balance between the boiler and the turbine. When throttle pressure is constant, the boiler […]

FutureGen may be getting the headlines, but it’s not the only superclean demonstration plant in town. In fact, you could argue that other technologies are further down the evolutionary timeline. Case in point: Clean Energy Systems’ adaptation of rocket engine technology to radically change the way fuel is burned. The result is a true zero-emissions power plant.

Gas turbine manufacturers aren’t selling as many machines today as they did in the hyperactive 1990s. But they are still continuing to refine G-Class technology. It has been about eight years since the first steam-cooled SGT6-6000G from Siemens Power Generation entered service. Take a quick tour of what must now be considered a mature gas turbine technology.

Last month, POWER weighed the pros and cons of the various grid interconnection options available to distributed generation plants. This month we explore the technology choices for generating reactive power, or volt-amperes reactive (VARs), which utilities are willing to pay for as an ancillary service.

If little else is clear about the future of the U.S. power industry, this much is: Electricity rates are going up across the country, and will continue to. None of the esteemed panelists at the CEO session of the ELECTRIC POWER 2007 Conference & Exhibition in Chicago last month actually said those words. But much […]