The 13th annual meeting of the Combined Cycle Users Group, launched in San Antonio in fall 2011, is a cornerstone of Power Users’ 2023 Combined Conference in the Omni Atlanta Hotel at CNN Center, August 28 – 31. Technical program for the upcoming meeting was developed by the all-volunteer steering committee of engineers and managers identified in the sidebar and accompanying photo—many with decades of relevant experience. A preview of the presentations scheduled for the week beginning August 28 follows.
CCUG steering committee, 2023
Chair: Brian Fretwell, director of mechanical services for engineering and major projects, Calpine
Vice chair: Robert Mash, plant manager, GE Power Services, River Road Generating PlantPhyllis Gassert, program director for operations excellence, Talen Energy
Steven Hilger, PE, plant manager, NAES Corp, Dogwood Energy Facility
Jason Jauregui, production team lead, CAMS, Woodbridge Energy Center
Aaron Kitzmiller, PE, plant engineer, Luminant, Fayette Power Plant
Jonathan Miller, maintenance manager, CLECO, Arcadia Power Station
Ben Stanley, VP operations, DGC Operations
Most sessions are user only. Non-users want to participate must be approved by the steering committee to gain admission. Presenting vendors are allowed in the room only when it is their time to present.
Expectation is that most of this year’s presentations will be made available to owner/operators through the Power Users website a few months from now. Slide decks from 2022 and earlier meetings already are accessible to registered users. If you are not registered, sign up now at www.powerusers.org: It’s easy and there’s no charge.
Monday, August 28. The CCUG technical program begins in earnest with a three-hour workshop (9 a.m. to noon) on “Mastering Desuperheating and Attemperation.” Ory Selzer of IMI Critical Engineering covers physics and design evaluation before moving on to application-specific challenges in HRSG, turbine bypass, and auxiliary systems.
The afternoon session includes a roundtable on lessons learned from LOTO events followed by presentations on film-forming amines, turndown or shutdown: combatting the effects of increased cycling, and hydrogen as a fuel for gas turbines.
Tuesday, August 29. Morning session starts with a roundtable on preparation for, and operation during, extreme hot weather and concludes with an EPRI presentation on process chemistry in combined-cycle plants. In between are user presentations on DCS replacement (Where do you start?) and high dewpoint in generator hydrogen, and vendor presos on the use of water-mist fire suppression systems to replace CO₂ and enhanced SCR and CO system management to meet today’s operational challenges.
The afternoon features the following:
- A roundtable on human and organizational performance.
- Supply-chain mitigation.
- HRSG roof liner and casing problems, why they occur, and repair options.
- Gas-turbine SCR in a changing world.
- Effects of cyclic operation on superheater link piping and manifolds.
Tuesday ends at 5 when the three-hour Vendor Fair begins.
Wednesday, August 30. The morning session opens with “Duct Burner Issues and Flame Monitoring” by HRST, followed by these presentations by Siemens-Energy personnel:
- Plant flexibility and integration with intermittent generating assets.
- Lessons learned on large forced outages.
- Asset management in an evolving market.
- Short-term layups.
Note that presentations by Siemens-Energy are not available through the Power Users website. Access them via the company’s Customer Extranet Portal at https://siemens.force.com/cep.
Amy Sieben of Industrial Air Flow Dynamics closes the morning program with “HRSG Drum Inspection.”
Wednesday afternoon is all GE Gas Power. The presentations are available only at https://mydashboard.gepower.com:
- Plant assessments for life extension.
- Transformer maintenance planning.
- Recent experience on water-chemistry challenges and FAC on in-service HRSGs.
- Benefits and methods of improving combined-cycle plant start time.
Thursday, August 31, the final day of the conference is morning-only. Two roundtables are on the program: Lack of skilled craft workers and how that can affect your maintenance outages, and Post-outage checklists—lessons learned. Remainder of the morning program will be filled by user presentations that had not been finalized at press time.
