In a period of accelerating change across the power generation industry—shaped by decarbonization goals, shifting market pressures, and the realities of an aging fleet—the 2025 Power Users Combined Conference presents a timely opportunity to learn, adapt, and prepare your team for what’s next.
From August 25–28 in Washington, D.C., this multi-group forum brings together five of the industry’s most engaged user communities: the Combined Cycle Users Group (CCUG), Steam Turbine Users Group (STUG), Generator Users Group (GUG), Power Plant Controls Users Group (PPCUG), and Low Carbon Peer Group (LCPG). Each user group delivers its own targeted agenda, while cross-over sessions, joint panels, and the always-valuable vendor fair create space for the kind of peer-to-peer knowledge transfer that no online training or webinar can replicate.
If you manage, operate, maintain, or support combined-cycle assets, the wide range of technical content provides direct insight and actionable information from users, solutions providers, and OEMs.
Operational resilience and performance tuning
CCUG’s agenda is built for hands-on plant professionals looking to boost efficiency, reduce forced outages, and extract more life from aging equipment. This year’s program covers an impressive range of topics—from water treatment’s impact on heat rate to operator-guided troubleshooting of SCR performance.
Day one features a deep dive from ChemTreat on optimizing plant chemistry for thermal performance, followed by presentations on GT upgrades and HRSG re-rates, inlet cooling economics, and cybersecurity briefings. The “Operator Experience” session hosted jointly by CCUG and PPCUG steering committees offers a grounded look at real-world scenarios and what’s working in the field.
Over the week, speakers from GE Vernova, Emerson, HRST, Tetra Engineering, Cutsforth, NAES, Siemens Energy, and others will share insights on duct burner issues, instrument calibration, static starter reliability, LCI maintenance, steam path modernization, and asset care strategies. Combined with robust roundtable participation and targeted case studies, CCUG is a must for anyone supporting a CCGT fleet.
Damage mitigation and strategic modernization
STUG’s track focuses squarely on reliability, asset life extension, and outage execution—particularly for plants with D-11 units or high-hour baseload machines.
The week opens with a three-part series from EPRI on high-temperature casing cracking, last stage blade (LSB) erosion mechanisms, and alignment drift. Follow-up sessions dig into real-world challenges including performance loss quantification, weld repair best practices, and outage lessons learned from the user community.
Tuesday’s agenda dives into efficiency-boosting retrofits, including packing ring upgrades, oil filtration strategies, and cladding to mitigate erosion and corrosion. A standout session features MD&A’s take on D-11 replacement planning, while Siemens Energy will address balance-of-plant impacts on steam turbine behavior and synchronous condenser conversions.
Wednesday and Thursday offer OEM guidance and plant-tested solutions on topics such as bolting maintenance, diaphragm repair, rotor crack fixes, AI-assisted diagnostics, and advanced steam path upgrades. The sessions culminate in GE Vernova’s showcase of its parts and repair network and a forward-looking roundtable on priorities for 2026.
Root cause, rotor reliability, and rewind readiness
GUG strives to bring clarity to one of the most complex and critical plant assets. With frame sizes aging and rewind demand outpacing shop capacity, the 2025 GUG agenda focuses on proactive troubleshooting, field testing, and failure prevention across both rotor and stator systems.
Day one begins with dual sessions on relay protection troubleshooting, followed by plant-side presentations on acoustic and vibration analysis, core foreign material exclusion (FME), emergent field replacements, and stator failure diagnostics. The highlight here is the back-to-back “Field Testing 101” and “Stator Testing 101” led by AGT Services, offering attendees practical benchmarks for testing, interpretation, and repair decision-making.
Throughout the week, users will hear RCA findings and fleet lessons from GE Vernova, Constellation, Southern Company, Calpine, NV Energy, and others. Sessions cover rewound rotor failures, bowed cores, magnet-related lead degradation, thermal sensitivity, and centralized data strategies for diagnostics and monitoring.
The final day belongs to Siemens Energy, who will present a wide-ranging series of sessions on actuator technology, controls training, fleet performance analysis, and generator reliability during this energy transition. If your site has a generator in service for more than 15 years—or you’ve got a rewind on the horizon—GUG will help you plan smarter.
Controls resiliency, diagnostics, and cybersecurity
Modern controls systems sit at the intersection of plant performance and risk—and the Power Plant Controls Users Group (PPCUG) addresses both. From Mark VIe architecture to cybersecurity best practices and vibration condition monitoring, PPCUG brings together control engineers, I&C staff, and operations teams to share experience and sharpen systems awareness.
GE Vernova anchors the opening day with a hands-on Mark VIe training series, moving from beginner to advanced topics. Sessions cover plant-wide controls lifecycle planning, BOP integration, simulator use, flame detection advancements, vibration monitoring, and alarm management optimization. The evolving cybersecurity landscape is also front and center, with presentations from both OEMs and end users on risk and readiness.
Later in the week, Emerson, ABB, SEL, AP4 Group, Environex, BK Vibro, Alta Solutions, and others tackle practical applications: centralized relay networks, historian-based analytics, health checks, and intelligent valve actuation. Whether you’re defending against obsolescence, integrating third-party systems, or trying to optimize plant controls for decarbonized operation, PPCUG delivers technical grounding with real-world relevance.
Ducks in a row
There is still time to register and attend. If you’re responsible for O&M, outage execution, fleet performance, controls reliability, or generator and steam turbine health, this is your conference. Go to www.powerusers.org, download the agenda, and build your schedule today.