501 F&G Users Group

How best to replace an HP evaporator: Tubes only or entire harp? Editor’s note: Online forums hosted by independent users groups are an invaluable communications medium for sharing experiences among industry colleagues. Power Users, which sponsors user-only discussion forums for the groups it manages—7F, Combined Cycle, Generator, and Steam Turbine—most recently launched an online HRSG […]

More tools, more features, fewer connections: Ovation scope expands There were reasons why David Farr, chairman/CEO of Emerson Corp, parent to Emerson’s Power & Water Solutions (PWS) business, delivered the opening address at the annual Ovation Users Group Conference, held in Pittsburgh, July 29 – Aug 2. At least one could speculate, reading between the

The 501F fleet was recognized by peers with five Best Practices awards in the 2018 judging. The annual program, sponsored by CCJ, has as its primary objective recognition of the valuable contributions made by owner/operator personnel to improve the safety and performance of generating facilities powered by gas turbines. In this section, 501F plants share

From central to distributed: The inflection point still not clear At the Distributed Energy Conference in Denver, Oct 15-17, 2018, one of the electric-power industry’s top analysts came away with the sense that the “inflection,” marking the point at which investment in distributed assets grows faster than that in centralized assets, hasn’t yet arrived. And

Progress has been made in making online partial discharge (PD) monitoring technology a viable method for assessing the condition of motor and generator stator-winding insulation. Problems have been identified on many machines and maintenance was possible to slow down or correct the problem before failure occurred. To gain this acceptance, earlier skepticism of the usefulness

Ansaldo/PSM PSM’s four-hour session at the 2019 501F Users Group meeting incorporated presentations on the vendor’s product line, combustion options, airfoils and upgrades, plant optimization, and rotor solutions, as well as other topics. The product portfolio was reviewed first. Highlights included the following: PSM said it can supply all hot-gas-path (HGP) parts for the 501F.

The compressor session that launched the user portion of the 2019 501F meeting touched on several topics of interest to the group, including the following: Complications with the re-installation of outlet guide vanes (OGV) surprised many attendees. The OEM installed the airfoils backwards, something most plant personnel didn’t think was possible. A clue that something

Depending on your plant’s power purchase agreement, adding peak-firing capability to simple- and/or combined-cycle gas turbines can provide significant economic benefit—provided the peak-fire capability is used strategically at times of high demand to avoid unnecessary maintenance. Recall that traditional peak firing increases the firing temperature a fixed, incremental amount above the rated baseload value. This

Tuxpan, home to two 501F-powered 2 × 1 combined cycles operated by NAES Corp in Mexico, is located in a salt air environment containing a great deal of dust from both agricultural and industrial activities in the area. These contaminants present a challenge because plant performance rapidly degrades as the air inlet filters foul. Quarterly,

Costly fogging-pump failures and consequent maintenance repairs had negatively affected Fremont Energy Center’s summer peak season performance and its maintenance budget. Plant personnel realized the need to prevent premature pump failures and avert costly fogging-system downtime. The plant maintenance staff began investigation of multiple issues linked to premature failures of the station’s fogging pumps. In