By Tina in General on November 11 2008
The EnergyPulse newsletter had a good article in it today:
“Measuring Performance”
In the article, Fred Angel (the author) is talking more about utilities delivering goods to customers, but his ideas can also apply within a power plant. His main points included the following:
1. “Identifying your processes”. For a power plant, one breakout might be: gas to the GT; air delivered to the GT; combustion products through the HRSG; steam production in the HRSG; steam through the ST; generators delivering KW’s to the grid. Each process can be reviewed separately for weak points, bottlenecks and potential areas for improvement.
2. “Listening to your Customers”. For a power plant, the grid would be your customer - but you can think of this as a two way street. Not only does the plant need to deliver the goods (kW’s) requested by the customer (grid or dispatch agency), but the dispatch agency for the plant should work with you to determine the best load to ask of your plant. Gas turbine output varies with ambient conditions, so making sure your dispatchers understand the capacity of your plant for the current conditions is crucial. Your dispatchers should also have some idea of the impact to heat rate of running below base load - which in some cases can be significant.
3. “Establishing Performance Measures” - my favorite part! Fred makes a good point: “what gets measured gets done”. That is why daily, monthly and yearly performance reports are critical to a performance improvement program. When items can be measured and identified as areas for improvement, monitoring those items in real time will support the ability of O&M personnel to make the desired improvements.
4. “Linking Rewards and Recognition” is a concept that often gets left out of the mix with performance monitoring programs. Often, O&M personnel see a performance monitoring program as extra work - something that will make their lives more difficult. A performance monitoring program seen in this light will not be able to achieve the desired goals for performance improvement. Not only does the use of a performance monitoring program need to be as painless as possible, there also need to be rewards and recognition for putting the results to work for the plant. The O&M personnel need to know their input regarding the system is valued, and any potential changes which impact performance (of the system or the plant) will be heard and addressed as needed. O&M personnel who are able to make improvements should be recognized and rewarded appropriately for their impact to the bottom line - which can be significant. Fred puts it well in his article: “Creating and instituting a rewards and recognition program is about improving performance.” A performance monitoring system is about data - the rewards and recognition program is about the people who make it happen.
Thank you Fred Angel for a great article!
By Tina in General, Performance Monitoring, Training on October 20 2008
Since I will be out of the office this week to deliver some training in performance monitoring systems - I was wondering… how often do you participate in training?
What type of training to you participate in?
Are there subjects you’d like to learn more about where training is not currently available?
The training program I’m delivering this week is a custom agenda for a private client. It will be geared toward helping the operations staff understand what their particular performance monitoring system (McHale Performance’s TEMPO system) is supposed to be doing for them - and how the operators can interact with the system to get the information they need. The goal of the training is to provide the operators with the tools and information they need to improve the performance of the plant.
If you’re interested in this type of training (or even this type of performance monitoring system), please let me know.
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By Tina in Performance Monitoring, Software, Systems on October 13 2008
I highly recommend reading this month’s Power Magazine - especially the article starting on page 66; Entergy’s ‘big catch”. It’s a great example of how performance monitoring - with all the best tools and personnel - can make a huge impact on a plant’s performance and, more importantly for many, it’s reliability.
Most notably, the company in the article (Entergy) had setup a central performance monitoring and diagnostic center, where they had 24×7 support for equipment monitoring. The central staff was looking for performance losses, but also at reliability issues, such as increases in vibrations, temperatures, and other parameters which might indicate an imminent failure. The plant staff soon learned that this central group of professionals was there “not looking over their shoulder, but rater, watching their back.”
For a lot of plants, a central diagnostic center may be financially out of reach - although, when you consider the potential savings in forced outages and maintenance costs, it’s harder to make that argument. But, any additional observations you can make will support increased intelligence of plant operation which can lead to finding that abnormal condition before a catastrophic event occurs.
Just constantly trending your overall net heat rate in real time, where the control room operator can view it as time allows, will start the ball rolling. It’s not much - but it’s something. Small Steps. Kaizen. Once real time heat rate is being consistently monitored, you’ll start to see why a corrected heat rate can be helpful - changes in heat rate at full load become more apparent when corrected to a common baseline conditions.
Setting up a corrected heat rate trend does not need to be a large undertaking. Some information from the OEMs may be necessary, but again, taken in small steps, it can be fit into nearly any operating budget - and the time to payback is often very short. Errors in fuel metering are commonly found once heat rate is scrutinized relative to a set of reference conditions. Bad heat rate assumptions can lead to poor dispatch assumptions - which lead to operating in poor markets, or not operating in profitable ones.
By Tina in General, Performance Monitoring on June 28 2008
Five Steps to a More Efficient Plant
1. Increase performance awareness,
2. Analyze your expected equipment performance,
3. Execute a performance test to baseline your unit,
4. Monitor your equipment for changes in performance,
5. Repeat.
By Tina in General, Performance Monitoring, Systems on May 22 2008
or… Improve Performance by Reducing CO2…
As the framework for carbon cap-&-trade programs is developed, more people are starting to look for where we can reasonably hope to cut CO2 and other greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions - quickly.
The most obvious way to stop emitting GHG, is to stop burning carbon-based fuels, such as natural gas, coal and oil. And, there are many, many demand-side conservation programs in place, which are making a significant impact on reducing the amount of energy required for many processes. But, I think we could all agree, that very few of us, if any, are willing to turn off the lights completely to reduce GHG. So, how else can we reduce fuel consumption?
By reducing supply-side GHG generation. Reduce the amount of fuel per kWh generated.
Which is exactly what improving heat rate does for existing generation facilities. It reduces the amount of fuel burned (and GHG produced) per kWh generated. There is a wealth of CO2 reduction potential in our existing power generation assets in the US.
As Steve Stallard points out in his article at EnergyCentral, performance monitoring programs on one way to not only improve your plant economics - but also to reduce your CO2 emissions.
Performance monitoring programs can point out where you are losing efficiency in your power generation facility; how your operators can make small changes which improve efficiency; and what you can expect from capital improvements in terms of increased capacity, reduced heat rate and reduced GHG emissions.
Now, if we could only get the regulations adjusted, such that new capacity at existing facilities - at improved heat rates - are not “new sources”, just better sources.
By Tina in General on May 7 2008
Negawatts… a term attributed to Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute… as a measure of conserved electricity. Each MW conserved is a MW which doesn’t need to be generated is a MW of capacity that doesn’t need to be built is equal to a Negawatt.
So, what do we call Megawatts of capacity found at a power plant due to improved efficiency of generation equipment?
These are also Megawatts of available capacity which did not require any new plant to be built. Some of them can be found by changing O&M procedures - so they don’t even need any funding to implement. And, they are often accompanied by improvements in heat rate, so not only are they equivalent Negawatts, they also provide Fuel and CO2 savings for all other Megawatts produced at the power plant.
It seems to me, we should promote both the Negawatts conserved by the consumer and the Negawatts found by the generator - use less, and produce what is still used more efficiently.
This may seem like a good way to put yourself out of business - if you’re in the power production & sales business - but, considering population is still increasing and more gadgets are being produced and purchased everyday which need energy to run, I really don’t see conservation and efficiency as leading to the downfall of the power markets.
If anything, I can see this backfiring on the whole conservation issue. When renewables are more prevalent, generation is ultra-efficient, and CO2 is all safely sequestered away from the atmosphere, people will no longer feel guilty about leaving their computers and TV’s on overnight. As long as we feel we’re doing our part to conserve at the office, we can ‘reward’ ourselves with extra consumption at home - turning down the temp on the AC or sitting an extra 10 minutes in the electric massage chair.
Negawatts are starting up a new market in “White Tags” - another means of trading carbon, in the form of conserved power. Europe already has a White Tag market, and Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Nevada have also started programs. It will be interesting to see how this all works out.
Reference: Getting More for Less: The Growing Role of Negawatts by Glenn Croston
By Tina in Community, General on April 22 2008
I finally found some time to organize a few photos from WTUI - enjoy!
Jackson (tourney winner) and Clay - in action!
Cocktail hour on the flight deck of the USS Midway
The Boiler Control Room on the USS Midway
Sunset on the flight deck of the USS Midway
T2E3 Booth #111 in the Exhibit Hall
Tennis “Pros”: Tina (me), John (ANZ Kiwi) and Susan (1st Lady of the WTUI) at the ANZ Hospitality Room
THE Charlie Daniels Band at the AP&M Hospitality Tent
By Tina in Community, General on April 10 2008
Wednesday: The last day of the conference - scheduled for a half-day. The first sessions in the morning were for user’s only, so I got to sleep in a few hours. Which was very welcome after the late night watching the Charlie Daniels Band (while drinking a few too many Lynchburg Lemonades - thank you AP&M)…
The wrap-up session started with an overview of the ORAP (Operational Reliability Analysis Program) data collected for fleet RAM (Reliability, Availability and Maintainability) reporting, and then rolled into two presentations by GE - one on the official statistics of the LMS100 - which the GE rep did his best to not contradict anything Tony had told us the day before. The second GE presentation was on the G4 uprate for the LM2500+. Both presentations were very informative, and well received.
The last presentation covered the “twinpack” installation of two LM6000’s coupled to a single generator in Den Haag (The Hague), Netherlands. The site was originally a boiler facility, retrofitted many years ago with two Rolls Royce gas turbines in combined cycle. This project removed the two RR engines, and replaced them with the twinpack LM6000 configuration. The project was designed to be able to reuse the existing HRSG’s and STG with minimal adjustments. The project also had to work within the existing infrastructure, which included a historical building - so no new pipes going through walls or windows! The project was highly successful, and has now been in operation for many months.
Also included in the session was the welcoming of the new WTUI president, following the “retirement” of Jim Hinrichs. There were actually three retirements announced at lunch on Tuesday - Jack Dow, Gae Dow and Jim Hinrichs. All three received standing ovations for their many years of service - the quality of which is readily apparent in the ease with which this conference has grown over the years and the value that attendees take home with them every year.
I’d like to add another “Thank You” to Jim, Jack and Gae - thank you for making this the best conference I’ve ever attended! Your shoes will be hard to fill!
By Tina in Community, General on April 9 2008
Tuesday: Today’s conference was mostly for the actual users, so as a vendor, I was limited to one session in the morning, and the technical presentations in the afternoon.
We had a few more Depot presentations - IHI and AVIO (TCT, MTO and ANZ had presentations on Monday morning). I think IHI wins for the oldest company - having opened their doors building steam engines for ships back in 1853. AVIO was impressive, in that 16% of their personnel are in Research and Development. AVIO also designed the IPT for the new LMS100 (according to their presentation).
The statistical analysis provided by Mark Axford showed that the GE Aeroderivative units are still selling strong - with a noticeable increase in sales going to the Middle East. But, the general feel was with the US economy slowing down, eventually electric demand will also level off and possibly decline as well - leading Mark to forecast fewer sales for all power generation equipment in the near future.
The highlight of the afternoon (besides talking with people at my exhibit booth) had to be Tony and his discussions relating experiences with the first LMS100 plant in operation. As with any Serial Number 1 engine, Tony and his people have had to work through some issues. But, even with all they’ve been through, optimism for the LMS100 remains high. Of course, with 22 more units already on order… new owners need all the optimism they can get!
The two technical presentations I attended were very interesting as well.
The first was on “simplified combined cycle” or SCC. In a normal combined cycle unit, the hot gas turbine exhaust gases are used to make steam, which is then sent to a steam turbine to make additional power. In the SCC, the exhaust is still used to make steam, but that is then re-injected into the gas turbine - no steam turbine required. This works well with the aeroderivative units, which makes less steam due to the lower exhaust energy (due to higher overall efficiency of the gas turbine). The SCC does not need a steam turbine, which makes capital costs a lot less, and also reduces the number of items needing O&M support. The SCC discussed in the presentation required new combustion nozzles, for the steam injection ports. One great side-effect of the steam & fuel mixing prior to combustion was a significant reduction in NOx with little impact to CO. In some cases, they reported a return on investment within one year. Seems like a great way to go, to me - assuming you have water available to send out the stack…
The second presentation was on the use of alternative fuels in the Lm6000 gas turbine. Biodiesel and Biofuels (i.e. ethanol) can now be mixed to a point where they meet the GE LM6000 fuel spec. GE has run sucessful field tests with B99.9 fuel blends. The biggest issue with retrofitting a unit for flex-fuel consumption looks to be the fuel flow rates required. Bio fuels are a lower heating value fuel - requiring more mass flow per hour to the unit - which in some cases pushes the piping and valves to their limits on capacity.
The evening wrapped up in hospitality suites provided by ANZ (thank you for the wonderful New Zealand lamb chops, mussels, and Pavlova - a sweet meringue cake) and AP&M. AP&M again won for the most lavish hospitality suite - complete with good southern cooking (including deep fried pickles and Lynchburg lemonade) and the Charlie Daniels Band! Yes, the Charlie Daniels Band came to perform for a group of engineers in San Diego - and yes, he did play the Devil Went Down to Georgia. What a show!
By Tina in Community, General on April 8 2008
Monday: The conference started in earnest today. Opening session at 8am.
Some items of interest from the opening remarks:
There are close to 900 attendees at this year’s conference; including users and vendors. – There are 22 countries represented from around the globe on all continents. – The WTUI conference started with just a few users in California 17 years ago - and, there are still a few people in the room that have been to all 17 gatherings.
Other comments from today’s meetings:
There is a new installation going on in The Hague, where two LM6000’s are being coupled to a single generator in a “twin pack” formation. The first of it’s kind, turning the LM6000 into an equivalent 100 MW power plant.
There are now 5 authorized Maintenance Depots for GE’s aeroderivative gas turbines: ANZ, AVIO, IHI, MTU, TCT.
One of the service bulletins discussed during the sessions dealt with combustor nozzles, and the wear due to NOx water injection seen in many units – especially those which operate more often at part loads
The evening ended with a reception (including dinner, dancing and fireworks) on the USS Midway in downtown San Diego. It was a great way to end a great day!
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