7F Users Group

Green Country Energy is an 801-MW facility in Jenks, Okla, equipped with three 1 × 1 combined-cycle units. It is owned by J-Power USA and operated by NAES Corp. Plant manager is Danny Parish. Complex underground water leak repairs Challenge. Safety is one of Green Country Energy’s (GCE) core values. Occasionally, a job like the […]

Armstrong Energy, a 625-MW, dual-fuel, simple-cycle peaking facility in Shelocta, Pa, is equipped with four 7FA.03 gas turbines. It is owned by LS Power and operated by IHI Power Services Corp. Brent Yatman is the plant manager. Unit axial vibration monitoring Challenge. Plant personnel desired a method for monitoring axial vibration levels during all phases

St. Charles Energy Center, a 745-MW, 2 × 1 combined cycle in Waldorf, Md, is owned by Competitive Power Ventures (CPV) and operated by Consolidated Asset Management Services (CAMS). Plant manager is Nick Bohl.  Pocket guides invaluable to new employees Challenge. Powerplants can be intimidating to new employees, and bringing a new hire’s knowledge up

With the 29th annual conference of the 7F Users Group at the Fairmont Dallas (Tex) Hotel, May 18-22, only a few months away, this might be a good time to register for the world’s largest meeting of frame gas-turbine owner/operators, assuming you haven’t already done so. About 250 users and 150 exhibitors are expected to

Many combined cycle (CC) turbines working in more and more aggressive operating regimes face the added challenge of shrinking O&M budgets. From an accountant’s view, fewer operating hours for older machines equates to less need for O&M funds, however wrong-headed that may be from the deck-plates view. Thus, the hunt for less expensive but reliable,

Week One review. What follows are summaries of user presentations from last Tuesday and Wednesday. They illustrate the value of participation in the 7F Users Group’s virtual conference and next year’s F2F in St. Louis. To dig deeper, speaker PowerPoints will soon be available on the Power Users website to registered owner/operators. Registration is easy

By some counts, says James E Timperley of J E Timperley Consulting LLC, over 300,000 electronic medical devices—such a pacemakers, defibrillators, cochlear, and neurostimulators—are implanted in Americans annually. Millions of these appliances are in service, covering all age groups in today’s population. This means that perhaps 1% of all people entering a powerplant may have

Editor’s note: What follows are summaries of user and vendor presentations made last Tuesday and Wednesday. They illustrate the value of participation in both the 7F Users Group’s 2020 Digital Conference and the organization’s upcoming 30th Anniversary Meeting at the Marriott St. Louis Grand, May 24-28, 2021. To dig deeper, PowerPoints or video recordings of

The 7F Users Group and CCJ are working together to expand the sharing of best practices and lessons learned among owner/operators of large frame engines. One of the user organization’s objectives is to help members better operate and maintain their plants, and a proactive best practices program supports this goal. Consider submitting to the 2022

A roundtable on winterization at the 2021 conference of the Combined Cycle Users Group drew on the vast experience owner/operators who have faced heat-trace-system challenges at their facilities. There are still two outage seasons before winter 2023 to implement the many best practices shared by colleagues from Woodbridge Energy Center, Dogwood Energy, and others. By