Best Practices

By Jason Makansi, principal, Pearl Street, a Tucson-based consultancy All of us can point to truly memorable events and periods in our careers. A 10-day period that began with a tour and deep dive of Los Angeles Department of Water & Power’s (Ladwp) Beacon storage facility in the Mojave desert and ended with the catastrophic […]

Overfiring during startup General Electric Speedtronic™ Mark I control systems were installed on gas turbines in the early 1970s, primarily on MS5001N and MS7001B engines. Fig 1 shows a typical Mark I panel being tested using a device known as the Speedtronic Calibrator. Note that the Calibrator has two ribbon connectors patched into designated locations

Air inlet systems—including filter houses, evaporative coolers, cooling-coil support structure, silencers, ductwork, etc—seldom get the respect they deserve. Properly maintained, they help assure maximum output and high availability of your gas turbines. Yet, they are almost an afterthought at many plants, the focus being primarily on rotating equipment. Annual inspection of the air inlet system

A recent webinar, posted here, will assist in ensuring environmental health and safety amidst the Covid-19 pandemic are being handled properly and with the utmost attention to detail. Groome Industrial Service Group has been in the industrial and commercial cleaning business for over 50 years and most known for their expertise in specialty cleaning of

If the coronavirus pandemic has taught us one thing, having the ability to access the expert information needed to perform O&M tasks at the highest level without leaving the plant (or home) is vital. With good internet connections generally available at most powerplants, the challenge might be finding the information required. You likely have several

For gas-turbine-plant owner/operators, Highview Power Storage Inc’s grid-scale storage system at least looks and acts like the kind of power system you’re already familiar with. It’s called CRYOBattery™, and is based on the compression and expansion of the most common fluid around—air. Unlike lithium-ion and other solid-state batteries, some flow batteries, and flywheels, CRYOBattery is

Reliable electric supply in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia depends to a large degree on the proper operation of gas turbines, which dominate the country’s generation infrastructure. At the end of 2018, Saudi Electric Co (SEC), the leading producer of electricity with a nominal 70% market share, had 53,500 MW of capacity installed at its

Film-forming substances (FFS), intended primarily for the protection of metal surfaces, are not new. The earliest patent (known to the editors) for one such substance, octadecylamine (ODA), was issued in 1954, with first powerplant applications in the former Soviet Union and East Germany. Earlier still, FFS were used to protect shipments of military equipment during

The Air-Cooled Condenser Users Group (ACCUG) annual meeting was held outside the US for the first time, in Queretaro, Mexico, Oct 21-24, 2019. Sessions began with a review of information on flow-accelerated corrosion (FAC) and cycle chemistry prepared by Barry Dooley, Structural Integrity, and presented by EPRI’s Andy Howell, chairman of the group. In-depth discussion

The first meeting of the Australasian Boiler and HRSG Users Group (ABHUG), held last fall (2019) in Brisbane, Australia, followed 11 annual meetings of AHUG (Australasian HRSG Users Group). The added B is for boilers. Content now includes conventional fossil-plant technologies and issues closely related to those involving heat-recovery steam generators in combined-cycle and cogeneration