heat recovery steam generator

Power plant construction and retrofit projects come in all shapes and sizes, but they all generally have at least one thing in common: complexity. There are usually a lot of moving pieces that must be managed. This can include sourcing the right materials and components, getting equipment delivered to the site at the right time, […]

The heyday of combined cycle plant construction (especially in the U.S.) was at the start of the millennia. Between 2000 and 2005, about 130 GW of natural gas–fired combined cycle plants opened in the U.S.

Environmental pressure is ramping up. Countries have issued targets to reduce or even eliminate the use of traditional fossil fuels in order to reduce emission of greenhouse gases such as CO2. Gas turbine original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are responding by investing in hydrogen (H2) combustion. They are spending heavily on the development of combustors and […]

The experience of South Humber Bank Power Station in the UK is just one example of overcoming corrosion challenges at power generation facilities. Facing issues during routine maintenance shutdown of heat recovery steam generators (HRSGs), South Humber began using VCI (Vapor Corrosion Inhibitor) technology to solve their dew point corrosion problem in 2009. Although it […]

Iberdrola SA and Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems (MHPS) recently commissioned the El Carmen combined cycle plant, located in Nuevo León, northeast Mexico. Wood supplied the two horizontal heat recovery steam generators (HRSGs) for the plant. The 875-MW combined cycle plant is based on two 300-MW MHPS M501J combustion turbines and is the first plant built […]

Turbine modifications will shorten the life of heat recovery steam generator (HRSG) tubing, but the most dramatic reductions may not be where you expect. Combined cycle power plant gas turbine and steam turbine modifications can provide sizable economic gains. But these improvements often come at the cost of the serviceable (useful) life of the high-temperature […]

Distributed generation integrated with intermittent renewable generation responds to the growing need for highly flexible small-scale (less than 100 MW) power generation resources. The limiting factor facing plant designers is that the conventional heat recovery steam generator (HRSG) does not enable fast-acting power generation demanded by modern grid systems. John Cockerill Energy’s vertical once-through boilers […]

Today’s heat recovery steam generators (HRSGs) are suffering reliability problems, mainly because they’re being operated in the cycling mode instead of the baseload mode for which they were designed. The good news is HRSG suppliers are adapting to the market demands and are designing the next generation of HRSGs to have cycling-friendly—also called fast-start—features. One […]

Ever since deregulation came to the power industry, combined cycle plant managers have been trying to benchmark their production metrics and cycling costs against those of their competitors. There has always

Attemperation equipment is necessary to control steam temperatures at many power plants. However, when the equipment functions improperly or the design is flawed, thermal quenching/shock can damage piping

When U.S. President Jimmy Carter signed into law the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 (PURPA), he unintentionally ignited the worldwide deregulation of electricity markets, which in turn began a worldwide technology race between two distinct types of power plants: the newly created, industrial-scale plant that PURPA dubbed “cogeneration” and the traditional, utility-scale power […]

It is fairly common for power plant engineers and maintenance managers to focus on fireside issues rather than waterside issues during routine maintenance outages. However, that could be a mistake. Waterside

Thermohydraulic simulations can provide detailed heat recovery steam generator (HRSG) data to help determine the root cause of failures, predict the degree of wear from various mechanisms, and assess the

Many combined cycle power plants have established a pH guideline between 9.6 and 10.0 to minimize corrosion in heat recovery steam generators and condensers. Neutralizing amines are used to achieve these pH

For a decade or more, heat recovery steam generator (HRSG) users have heard that Grade-91 tubing (T-91) is susceptible to microstructure damage from improper heat treatment. Now, a new damage mechanism in T-91 tubing has been identified, which HRSG users heard about at the February 2018 HRSG User’s Group Conference. During the discussion on heat […]

Finding the best place to sample heat recovery steam generator (HRSG) tubes isn’t as hard as finding a needle in a haystack (but it’s like that). Ask most HRSG users where they take their routine tube samples for monitoring under-deposit corrosion in the high-pressure evaporator, and they’ll tell you, “first row, because it’s the hottest […]

Innovative boiler and heat recovery steam generator (HRSG) designs are improving efficiency, reducing emissions, and lowering maintenance costs. Some well-proven technology, such as circulating fluidized bed

Per January 1st, 2018 Siemens has rebranded and renamed its full subsidiary NEM Energy into Siemens Heat Transfer Technology (HTT). Siemens HTT is a specialist in the field of Heat Recovery Steam Generators for power plants. After completing the functional integration, the name change of NEM is the next step in the integration process initiated […]

Today’s construction boom in the combined cycle/cogeneration sector is great news for suppliers of gas turbines (GTs), heat recovery steam generators (HRSGs), and engineer-procure-construct (EPC) services. But before this boom advances from artist’s sketches (Figure 1) to first fires, the designers of all those next-generation combined cycles should pause to reflect on the lessons learned […]

First Power Island Solution Provided by GE in Asia – enabled by Alstom acquisition First use of newly-acquired HRSG technology from Doosan​ SEOUL, KOREA—September 20, 2016— GE’s power island will literally power an island – Jeju Island that is! GE Power, a division of GE (NYSE: GE), today announced the first order of its power […]

As combined cycle gas turbine plants are called upon to play a larger and more flexible role in the generation mix, it’s important to schedule a comprehensive assessment of major components at key intervals to ensure reliable operation. Just like humans, power plants can benefit from regularly scheduled condition assessments, which are sometimes called “health […]

Steam production is strongly influenced by the cleanliness of the gas-side heat transfer surface in a heat recovery steam generator (HRSG). However, when deposits begin to impede heat transfer or increase gas-side pressure drop, it is time for a cleaning. CO2 pellet blasting is a cost-effective and environmentally benign cleaning method available to power plant […]