Team-CCJ – Page 26 – Combined Cycle Journal

Team-CCJ

Generator History, Part 1: Electrical insulation systems

Stator windings Groundwall insulation. Before the turn into the 20th century, insulating materials were natural products: shellac, cotton, paper. The rudimentary stator-winding designs were at low voltage and low temperatures, and apparently functioned fairly well as long as duties were kept sufficiently low. With inevitable trends to larger generators, with higher voltages and higher thermal […]

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Generator History, Part 3: Generator cooling methods

Originally, generators were cooled by once-through open air flow. Contamination problems led to closed ventilation systems, with water-to-air heat exchangers to remove the thermal losses—the TEWAC cooling system (Totally Enclosed Water-to-Air Cooling). This type of system is still very popular for small generators. But by the 1930s, ratings were reaching a size where the ability

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Generators: Wrap-up

Clearly, this article, presented in the four sections bulleted below, provides a very general overview of generator history, with more left unsaid than said. No doubt there are errors of omission as well as commission. But hopefully the reader has gained a better appreciation for the efforts that went into the generator designs of today.

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Fairview: Successes attest to the value of remote M&D

Powerplants built over the past several decades are packed with instrumentation, transmitters, and computers. This extensive automation has allowed reduced staffing levels while introducing challenges for effectively analyzing and acting on degrading conditions that may occur long before alarm levels are reached. Many combined cycles use all, or portions of, remote monitoring and diagnostic (M&D)

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Fairview: Better DCS screens improve starting reliability

Fairview incurred several plant trips following commissioning because of valves hanging up and/or key parameters being overlooked until it was too late for the Mark VIe control system to keep the unit in service. After a handful of failed starts, staff began to discuss how plant operation could be made more reliable and profitable. Most

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Fairview: Redundant ammonia injection equipment reduces probability of NOx exceedance

Soon after commissioning, staff discovered that a single point of failure of the ammonia-injection control valve could create an emissions exceedance, limiting the plant’s response and output, as dictated by state environmental permitting. An hourly NOx exceedance was experienced less than one month after commissioning because of a faulty flowmeter indication. It limited the amount

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Empire’s upgrades zero-in on solutions for fall prevention

Falls are among the most common causes of serious work-related injuries and deaths. OSHA general industry standards require fall protection for persons working at heights of 4 ft or greater above a lower level (6 ft for construction). In 2021, falls remained the top OSHA citation for the 11th consecutive year. Fall protection systems include

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Active, wireless monitoring of high-energy piping improves safety, reliability at St. Charles

St. Charles Energy Center (SCEC) was commissioned in February 2017. Near the end of 2019, the plant experienced a through-wall leak at a girth weld on a hot-reheat (HRH) bypass line to the condenser, resulting in forced-outage time and the loss of generation revenue. But most concerning was that this was a significant safety concern

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