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 […]
Fairview: Better DCS screens improve starting reliability Read More »
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
Fairview: Redundant ammonia injection equipment reduces probability of NOx exceedance Read More »
Challenge. Shortly after commissioning, CPV Towantic noticed its oil/water separator (OWS) effluent flowmeter was inaccurate, requiring the outlet valve to remain closed until the instrument could be repaired or replaced and certified. Primary concern was that the OWS is responsible for removing oil from the wastewater stream prior to its discharge (Fig 1). To keep
Challenge 1. While CPV Towantic was in the process of its Spill Prevention, Control, and Countermeasure (SPCC) recertification (from the pre-construction initial submission) and was seeking PE certification for the EPA submission, the certifying professional engineer expressed concern with the (1) so-called shed roof around the 1.5-million-gal diesel-oil tank’s secondary containment, and (2) lack of
Towantic gets SPCC certification, reduces oil-spill risk, increases safety—all at once Read More »
Challenge. The annual cost of providing casualty and property insurance to protect facility owners from significant financial hardship in case of a loss event can reach into the millions of dollars. Annual insurance inspections help “rheostat” this cost in either direction. The more areas of concern the insurance engineers and the inspectors have, the more
Towantic: Implementing insurers recommendations reduces site risks, saves on premiums Read More »
Challenge. CPV Towantic is an outdoor facility. The OEM-provided generator collector-house assemblies allowed moisture to collect around brushes and rigging during heavy rain events (Fig 10). Generator field resistance to ground was alarming, and in one case tripped the generator. Initial thought was moisture was coming in around the brush inspection door. After much investigation
Custom weather protection for collector-house assembly reduces trips, water damage Read More »
With outage season in full swing, Greg McAuley, CTO of TRS Services and lead consultant at sister company GMW Consulting, shares his decades of industry experience below in the post-outage checklist he developed for owner/operators of gas and steam turbine/generators. Post-outage reviews and records are particularly important, McAuley says, because you already paid for the
Challenge. Soon after commissioning, one of Fairview’s gas turbine/generators experienced stator-ground-fault trips attributed to isophase-bus (IPB) water ingression into potential transformer (PT) cabinets, followed by persistent lower-than-expected resistance readings. Doble Engineering was engaged to perform electromagnetic interference (EMI) testing on several components of the plant’s three power trains to assess their condition. Generators, step-up transformers
The state-of-the-art gas turbines (GTs), such as the H-class and J-class machines, are designed to maximize fuel-to-electricity efficiency, achieving and even exceeding 60% in combined-cycle mode. Already, there are an impressive number of these machines in the field; one supplier listed 80+ H-class GTs operating, in commissioning, being installed, or on order. This achievement is
Latest GTs pose special challenges for NOx, CO catalyst system design Read More »
Two of the biggest, bad-ass gas turbines currently operating in the US are proceeding through their paces at Exelon Generation’s 2 × 1 Wolf Hollow II facility, Granbury, Tex, southwest of Fort Worth. CCJ editors stopped in to visit with Plant Manager Jeff Klier during a recent swing through the state. Of utmost importance to
Wolf Hollow offers early glimpse into H-machine performance Read More »
