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.

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

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

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

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

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

In today’s topsy-turvy world of electric-power generation and delivery anything can happen, and it does. Recall that only a couple of years ago, the OEM with the largest position in the generation sector purchased a major competitor and tried to take by storm the industry’s aftermarket business—worldwide. That might have led some to conclude that