7F Users Group

Summaries of MD&A’s spring 2022 webinars on topics of interest to all involved in the operation and maintenance of generating plants powered by gas turbines follow. Both experienced personnel and those new to the industry might benefit from a quick read to identify topics of immediate value and then follow up by listening to recordings …

MD&A webinars focus on inspection, repair, upgrade of retaining rings, turbine valve actuators, fuel-nozzle life extension, plus alarm troubleshooting Read More »

The road to net zero carbon by, well, pick your date, 2030, 2035, 2050, is paved with pledges, promises, mandates, and political rhetoric, but the landscape will most surely be dotted with gas-fired combined cycles making megawatt-hours when the variable renewable resources are not, according to Jeff Schleis, gas-turbine product manager, EthosEnergy. In a recent …

Thermal performance audit key to extracting more dollars from older plants Read More »

While the industry makes progress towards the fully connected, largely automated powerplant with a meta-organization of onsite staff, remote monitoring and diagnostics (M&D) assistance, and market delivery setpoints, there are some serious and costly gaps that are overlooked in data links and industrial communications. According to Jeff Downen, business owner, Black Start LLC, these gaps …

Plant-network, data-link, communications issues revealed during commissioning Read More »

Once upon a time, a vertically integrated utility was responsible for electricity supply—soup to nuts, that is, from the powerplant to the customer’s meter. Today, responsibility for over half of US power production rests with non-utility entities. Like most big industry shifts, this transition has led to greater efficiencies in some areas, challenges in others. …

Multiple organizations create new challenges for plant operators Read More »

Mike Hoogsteden, Advanced Turbine Support’s director of field services, called to say his company has informed customers that it believes visible-dye liquid penetrant (PT) is the most dependable in-situ inspection process for identifying radial tip cracks in 7FA Stage 0 and Stage 1 rotor blades. The OEM recommends in Technical Information Letter 1509-R3, “F-Class Front-End …

Visible-dye liquid penetrant said best for identifying radial tip cracks in 7FA R0 and R1 rotor blades Read More »

Spending two full days at the DistribuTECH® 2018 Conference & Exposition in San Antonio, Tex, in January, was an opportunity for the editors of GRiDToday and CCJ ONsite to assess progress as the electricity industry “transforms” from centralized to distributed assets with customer service at the core of the enterprise. Or so all the executives …

COMMENTARY: Utilities embrace digital technology within the same old business models Read More »

Air-cooled condensers (ACCs), like their water-cooled (WCC) cousins, get little respect from plant personnel. These heat exchangers typically are viewed as being of secondary importance compared to the steam turbine/generators they serve. They certainly are not eye candy. The most popular version of the former looks like a huge elevated stage with spindly legs, the …

Getting top performance from your air-cooled condenser Read More »

Sharing ideas, and solutions to problems encountered in operating and maintaining powerplants, is why users groups were formed by owner/operators. Talen Energy is a big supporter of these self-help all-volunteer organizations, its personnel actively participating in several—including the Combined Cycle and 501G Users Groups. An idea sure to generate discussion at upcoming meetings comes from …

Vegetation challenge? Consider goats Read More »

Optimization of the utility production and delivery system at the University of Texas, Austin (UT-Austin) is the poster child for a work in progress. After all, you don’t optimize a 90-year-old powerplant, one with a mix of really old boilers and state-of-the-art gas turbine/HRSGs overnight or even in a few years. It’s also a glimpse …

Real-time optimization pushes out into distribution networks Read More »