Every buying decision—business and personal—should be supported by an objective evaluation of the alternatives. Meeting participation included. Tight budgets, staffing constraints, and the pressure on you to continually improve plant performance make conference selection particularly important. Most station personnel in responsible positions can get authorization to attend only one meeting a year these days. Obviously, you want to participate in the conference offering greatest professional value.

Heat-recovery steam generators may be the most undervalued assets in combined-cycle plants. Simply put, the HRSG is the big hunk of metal that sits between the “money machines”—gas and steam turbines—to make steam. Certainly not out of sight, but typically out of mind. You regularly hear about long-term service agreements (and other such arrangements) for gas turbines, steam turbines, and electric generators, what about the HRSG? Tubes fail, drum-to-downcomer welds crack, flow-accelerated and under-deposit corrosion consume metal, heat-transfer surfaces foul, etc, but that’s for the plant to deal with—based on the editors’ observations.

It’s important to expand your level of expertise on HRSGs as plants are forced to follow increasing levels of renewables generation. More than just a few combined cycles now are starting multiple times daily and doing so more rapidly. You have a pretty good idea about the cost of operating and maintaining rotating equipment in such a stressful environment because of the formulas the LTSA provider uses to schedule outages, but what about the HRSG? What should you be doing vis-à-vis monitoring, evaluation of pressure parts, regular maintenance, water chemistry, etc, to ensure a HRSG failure does not take out your combined cycle suddenly and put a dent in earnings?

With 2018 planning and budgeting already underway at most generating companies, perhaps the articles in this issue of CCJ ONsite, developed from material presented at the first HRSG Forum with Bob Anderson earlier this year (February 28-March 2, Charlotte), will help in your evaluation of conferences that you might attend next year. Consulting Editor Steve Stultz, who spent more than three decades at boilermaker Babcock & Wilcox Co, covered Anderson’s inaugural meeting, which featured participation by some of the leading HRSG experts, and wrote the articles below:

• • • What plant owners should know about today’s materials before specifying pressure parts. 

    • Presentations by owner/operators get high marks from HRSG Forum attendees. 

    • Drones: Consumable inspection tools with financial benefits. 

    • Same old cycle chemistry issues persist.

    • Invited vendors address top user concerns at HRSG Forum. 

Development of the 2018 program for the HRSG Forum with Bob Anderson is ongoing. An unreleased draft of the preliminary program reflects a diversity of subject matter, with presenters divided among owner/operators, consultants, and products/services providers. In addition to formal presentations by some of the industry’s leading experts, open-floor discussions are sprinkled throughout the program to dig deeper into topics of interest to attendees. Access to vendors/sponsors will be during breaks, receptions, and meals throughout the meeting.

Anderson released the names of these three 2018 presenters and their topics:

• • • Barry Dooley, Structural Integrity Associates Inc, “Film-Forming Products for HRSG Cycle Chemistry.” Dooley recently chaired the “First International Conference on Film-Forming Amines and Products” and will report on bleeding-edge technology developments worldwide. To whet your appetite, read a recent CCJ article on the subject authored by EPRI’s leading experts on water chemistry. 

    • Robert Hassing, NEM, “Assessing the Impact of Modifying the Gas Turbine on the Combined-Cycle/HRSG Plant Before Making Changes to the GT.”

    • Scott Wambeke, Excel Energy, “3-D Printing to Create True-to-Scale Mockups of HRSG Components for Planning Repair Activities.”