As fleets age and the pace of starts, cycling, and field rewinds intensifies, generator health is once again a front-line issue. Whether you’re facing stator bar degradation, thermal sensitivity, phase strap cracking, or the growing pains of an uprate, you’ll find answers, proven workarounds, and vendor insights at the Generator Users Group (GUG) sessions during the 2025 Power Users Combined Conference, August 25–28 in Washington, D.C.
The GUG track is where complex generator issues meet practical, plant-level solutions—and where users come to compare notes on failures, retrofits, RCAs, diagnostics, and fleet-wide trends. Below are day-by-day highlights from the 2025 agenda.
Monday, August 25 – Field-First Troubleshooting
The conference kicks off with a two-part relay troubleshooting deep dive led by Doug Weisz (Hubbell) and John Hoover (SEL Engineering Services)—ideal for engineers and technicians focused on generator protection schemes and fault response. Afternoon sessions move into field-level expertise with:
- “Core FME” from SRP’s Mike Young
- Planned vs emergent field replacements (TECO)
- Troubleshooting line-side air-cooled failures (Valia Energía)
- “Stator Troubleshooting” with Howard Moudy (National Electric Coil)
Roundtables and a GUG icebreaker set the tone for the week—reinforcing user-driven insight as the foundation for every session.
Tuesday, August 26 – Testing, Failures, and Fleet Risk
Day 2 begins with a tutorial on uprating generators, led by Jacques Leger (WEG Electric Machinery)—a topic of renewed urgency for plants chasing higher output amid tighter margins. Next, John Mihalic (EME Associates) dives into acoustic and vibration testing, while Robert Vandenabeele (Baseload Power) and Roger Kondos (Entrust) present failure data and field testing for rotors.
In the afternoon, Jamie Clark (AGT Services) delivers two core sessions:
- Field Testing 101: What to measure, what it means, and what to fix
- Stator Testing 101: Readings that should raise red flags—and what to do next
Additional technical talks include:
- Thermal rotor testing (MD&A)
- Advanced synchronous modeling (Peregrine Engineering)
Vendor Fair wraps up the evening.
Wednesday, August 27 – RCA, Rewinds, and Rotor Insights
Wednesday gets technical fast. GE Vernova leads the morning with:
- 7A6 fleet trends (Eric Buskirk)
- Failure modes and field-wide learnings (Saber Azizi)
- Root cause processes and inverter fault patterns
Other sessions include:
- Rewound rotor failure after just 6 months (Constellation)
- Thermal sensitivity root cause (Southern Company)
- Magnet-related lead failures (Calpine)
- Bowed core rewind case study (NV Energy)
The morning wraps with a GE-led roundtable focused on common challenges and trending fixes across large fleets.
Thursday, August 28 – Siemens Energy Technical Series
The final day is all Siemens Energy, beginning with Bill Moore (EPRI) on core issues and ending with a full vendor-led roundtable on major findings across the fleet. In between:
- Inspection & recovery lessons (Craig Spencer, Calpine)
- Generator troubleshooting case studies
- Generator reliability during the energy transition
- Training resources and customer support programs
If your site operates 7F, 7A6, H-class, or legacy machines, you’ll find multiple sessions tailored to your generator configuration, rewind history, and test data challenges.
Why It’s Worth Attending
If your generator went into service before 2010—or you’ve rewound a rotor in the past five years—this agenda speaks directly to your needs. Where else can you troubleshoot a failed rotor with the engineer who ran the RCA? Or benchmark vibration data with 30 other sites running the same frame size?
Register now at www.powerusers.org. Download slide decks from 2024, compare this year’s agenda to your plant’s known issues, and come to D.C. with your questions—and your team. Every session is grounded in user experience and designed to help you reduce downtime, mitigate risk, and extend the life of your critical assets.
