POWER Magazine 2016.04

April 2016 Vol. 160 No.
BUSINESS & TECHNOLOGY FOR THE GLOBAL GENERATION INDUSTRY SINCE 1882
Vol. 160 No. 4 April 2016
O&M Goes High-Tech
Coastal Plant Resilience

Business Challenges in
the Nuclear Sector
Communicate for
Compliance Success
Turbine Validation
Evolution
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ON THE COVER
Established 1882 Vol. 160 No. 4
April 2016
This climbing robot from International

Climbing Machines is capable of performing precise, nondestructive examinations
of tall vertical surfaces like wind turbines,
as well as basic maintenance tasks such
as sandblasting and grinding. Using robots for jobs like these can reduce inspection times, cut costs, and greatly
reduce risk to plant staff. Courtesy: ICM
SPEAKING OF POWER
When Technology Tails Wag Power Dogs
GLOBAL MONITOR
Vietnam Reconsiders New Coal-Fired Power Plants
Vattenfall Completes Worlds First Decommissioning of an Offshore
Wind Farm
THE BIG PICTURE: Energy for Power
Commission Backs Plan to Store Worlds Nuclear Waste in Australian
Outback
First Turbine Deployed at French Tidal Power Farm
Why Russias Largest Independent Power Company Built a Solar
Facility in Siberia
China Overtakes EUs Wind Installations
POWER Digest
8
8
12
14
16
17
18
18
FOCUS ON O&M
Covered Piping Systems O&M Programs for CCGT Plants
New Quality Assurance Program Launched for Wind Turbine Blades
20
24
LEGAL & REGULATORY

The Road to Distributed Generation: How to Avoid the Bumps
28
By Nicholas A. Giannasca, Davis Wright Tremaine
COVER FOCUS: OPERATIONS & MAINTENANCE

Leveraging Drones and Robots for O&M Savings
30
The capabilities of unmanned aircraft systems (commonly called drones)

and robots are becoming increasingly sophisticated, making them ideal for
a number of tasks on, in, and around power infrastructure. As with anything
involving aircraft and power plants, you need to know the law and regulations
before taking action.
Solar PV O&M Best Practices in a Rapidly Changing Market
40
40
Compared to thermal power facilities, solar photovoltaic (PV) plants require

less full-time, hands-on attention, but regular maintenance cannot be ignored
if you hope to maximize their value. We look at the state of the art in O&M
throughout a projects lifecycle.
Weighing Costs and Benefits in Hydropower Maintenance and

Upgrade Decisions
48
Most of the renewable energy capacity supplied by hydro plants was built
decades ago. Current technologies can offer numerous benefits, but getting
full value from upgrades requires strategic decision-making.
New Plant Design Options Expand Geothermal Power Operations
54
From hybrid technology to life-extension practices to flexible operation, todays

geothermal plants can offer more than their traditional baseload power.
48
|
April 2016 POWER
www.powermag.com
Risk Management: Using Resilience Engineering to Develop a More

Reliable Workforce, Part 2
60
Maintenance outages occur with predictable frequency, but your preparations

for those outages should be anything but predictable. Learn how to anticipate
and avoid potential challenges and risks before they become problems.
ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATION
Communication Was Essential to Alliant Energys Successful Handling of
Emissions Monitoring
66
Faced with an unexpected change in regulatory requirements? Instead of acting like an ostrichwith its head in the sand and another body part exposed
engaging in proactive communications with all stakeholders can lead to the
least contentious way forward.
74
RESILIENCY
Maximizing Coastal Power Plant Resiliency
70
Coastal sites are subject to an extra set of weather-related challenges. Heres

what some are doing to enhance preparedness, based in part on lessons
learned from recent losses.
GAS TURBINES
Rigorous Turbine Validation Process Produces Sustained Reliability
Exceeding 99%
74
Power plant owners want the most advanced prime movers, but they also
want to avoid surprises that can come with the installation of new equipment.
The solution: advanced validation techniques.
GENERATION TRANSITIONS
70
Entergy Sheds Uneconomic Merchant Nuclear Plants to Focus on

Regulated Business
77
Like many U.S. utilities these days, Entergy is reevaluating its portfolio of
regulated and unregulated assets. Long-accustomed to having easy access
to natural gas, its just recently considering renewables.
NUCLEAR POWER
The Global Nuclear Power Industry Faces Localized Outlooks
82
Even at a moment when emissions-free nuclear power should be in favor,

its finding its economics challenging in all but the most supportive political
environments.
COMMENTARY
Radical Energy BreakthroughsWithout the Risk
100
By Dr. Paul Bunje, XPRIZE Foundation, and Alisa Ferguson, consultant
82
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ONLINE EXCLUSIVES FROM POWERMAG.COM

China Rolls Out Proposal for Worldwide Grid
Notable Coal Ash Spills [Slideshow]
Is Small-Scale LNG an Option for Distributed Generation?
U.S. Cybersecurity Super Team Reveals How Attackers
Prompted Ukraine
Blackouts
New Reports Say CPP and Renewable Tax Credits Have Big Implications for the
Power Sector
Nieto: Mexicos Energy Transition Will Persevere Despite Dismal Oil Prices
What Unites OPEC, U.S. Shale, and Power Generation
Oregon Legislature Passes Bill to Eliminate Coal from State Power Supply
Chief Justice Roberts Rejects Bid to Suspend MATS Rule
Solar PV Capacity Factors a Mix of Insolation and Design
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POWER April 2016
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EDITORIAL & PRODUCTION

Editor: Dr. Gail Reitenbach
editor@powermag.com
Consulting Editor: Dr. Robert Peltier, PE
Associate Editor: Thomas Overton, JD
Associate Editor: Sonal Patel
Associate Editor: Aaron Larson
Senior Graphic Designer: Michele White
Production Manager: Tony Campana, tcampana@accessintel.com
Contributors: Paul Bunje, PhD; Alisa Ferguson; Nicholas Giannasca;
Jeffrey Hanson, PE; Carlos Koeneke, PhD; Beth Lay; Kennedy Maize;
Allie Nelson
GENERATING COMPANY ADVISORY TEAM

T. Preston Gillespie, Jr., Senior Vice President-Nuclear Operations, Duke Energy
Pat McCarty, Generation Manager, Tacoma Power
Mark C. McCullough, Executive Vice President, Generation, American Electric Power
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POWER April 2016
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SPEAKING OF POWER
When Technology Tails Wag

Power Dogs
hen you hear drone, do you think,
toy, military craft, dangerous device, or useful tool? Depending on
the type of unmanned aircraft system (aka,
drone) were talking about, any of those
descriptors (or multiple ones) could be appropriate. Drones were a hit under Christmas
trees last December, theyre a now-common
weapon delivery system, and they alsoas
youll see in this issues cover storiesare
beginning to play useful roles in industry.
Technologys Role in Energy

Transitions
We usually think of novel technologies
as introducing solutions, but many also
introduce fresh challenges, like new privacy and safety issues raised by the increasing recreational and commercial use
of drones.
At IHS CERAWeek in late February, when
Exelon CEO Chris Crane was asked what
energy industry leaders would be talking
about at CERAWeek 2020, he responded
that discussions would be about the surprising technology that has transformed
the industry. Of course, technology has
already transformed the energy industry
a few times. Nuclear power, with which
Crane is very familiar, was the biggest
new technology transformation for the
power industry in the last century. Were
currently in the midst of another transformation, this one involving wind and solar
power plus new forms of energy storage.
And then theres hydraulic fracturing,
which has transformed global oil and gas
marketsan issue that was the pervasive
theme of this years CERAWeek.
The conferences official theme was
Energy Transitions, but a more apt one
would have been How Fracking Flipped
Winners and Losers.
CERAWeek attracts headliners from
around the world, and this year, regardless of which continent the speakers hailed
from, it was clear that the balance of power
in the energy sector has shifted. Though
shale resources have been a topic of conversation for the past few years at the Davos
of energy, in 2016 it was clear that were
actually beyond the transition stage; the
dynamics have changed. Though still important, OPEC no longer holds all the cards.
6
Fracked natural gas and oil have upended

global commodity prices and supply chains,
as was demonstratedwith serendipitous
timingwhen the first tanker carrying liquefied natural gas left a U.S. port, headed
for Brazil, on gas day at the event.
Fracking technology has been a boon
for the U.S. economy and consumers, but,
as several speakers pointed out, there are
negative consequences of unanticipated
supply shifts. Among them is the fact that
global oversupply of oil and gas has led to
reductions of as much as a third in research
and development (R&D) as well as in developing new plays. Sooner or later, the multimillionaire experts agreed, the cycle will
turn, prices will spike, and the resources
may not be there as quickly as required.
Of Climate Change and Fossil Fuels

Another discussion thread at CERAWeek
concerned responses to climate change in
light of what most participants saw as a
positive outcome from the Paris talks in
December. Natural gas, thanks to fracking,
is seen as the near-term transition path
to a lower-carbon energy system. Whether
in reference to oil, natural gas, or coal,
every speaker who addressed the issue
explicitly or implicitly said that leaving
remaining fossil fuels in the ground (as
some Paris participants had suggested) is
not an optionno surprise, as CERAWeek
focuses almost exclusively on fossil fuels.
At the same time, there were no climate
change deniers at the event. So if theres
agreement that the world needs fossil
fuels but also needs to counteract their
greenhouse gas (GHG) effects, is carbon
capture and sequestration (CCS) the technology weve all been waiting for?
CCS: Magic Bullet or Blank?
In contrast to virtual consensus about
the effects of fracking on global markets,
opinions about the viability of CCS varied
substantially. Heres a sampling of the energy experts comments:
International Energy Agency (IEA) Executive Director Fatih Birol: CCS can be
a very important asset-protection strategy, yet the appetite for CCS is not
as strong as it should be.
www.powermag.com
General Electric Chairman and CEO Jeffrey

Immelt: Its going to be a struggle.
Minister of Petroleum & Mineral Resources (for Saudi Arabia) Ali Al-Naimi:
For the record, we recognize the threat
posed by climate change and are investing in CCS and renewables.
Centrica (UK) CEO Iain Conn: Im quite
sure that clean coal is a miss.
From where I sit (in the cheap seats),

CCS has been a case of the tail wagging
the dog. The only time post-combustion
carbon capture from power plants is even
being looked at (outside of governmentsponsored pilots) is when theres a plan to
partially offset capture costs through sales
of compressed carbon dioxide (CO2) for enhanced oil recovery (EOR). Not surprisingly,
the oil and gas industry is a much bigger
fan of CCS than power generators are. Until more economic and varied uses can be
found for CO2 captured from power plants
(see this months Commentary for one effort to encourage such development), CCS
increases hydrocarbon extraction efficiency
at the cost of power generation efficiency.
Faith Must Lead to Action

So, can technologya better type of CCS
and/or new forms of energy conversion and
storagesave the world from unmanagable
climate change while ensuring energy access
and economic prosperity for all? By 2020?
The IEAs Birol said he has faith in the
power of technology to solve the fossil
fuel/climate change conundrum. Id like
to believe we can develop technology
solutions to our energy and climate challenges, but today it seems that certain end
users (fossil power generators) are paying
a higher price for participating in the fossil fuel economy than market participants
further upstream.
While commodity prices are low, oil and
gas and coal mining companies could be
diversifying through R&D of carbon-mitigation technologies. Its long past time
for upstream energy companies to demonstrate substantive commitment to climate
change solutionsother than CCS-toEORthat reduce the carbon footprint
across the energy sector.
Gail Reitenbach, PhD is editor of POWER.
POWER April 2016
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Vietnam Reconsiders New

Coal-Fired Power Plants
Vietnam, which has long been a coal exporter, is considering a hiatus in licensing
new coal-fired power plants because it says
domestic coal reserves wont be enough to
feed generators starting in 2020.
Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung in early February told the Ministry of Industry
and Trade to submit proposed revisions to
its latest master plan. The revisions should
reconsider the countrys lofty coal power
ambitions and reflect recent commitments
to cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by
8% by 2030 compared to a business-asusual scenario, he said.
About 28% of Vietnams total installed
power capacity of 33.9 GW in 2014 was
coal-based. The remainder came from hydropower (40%), gas turbines (22%), diesel and wind (5%), oil-based thermal (2%),
gas-based thermal (1%), and imported
sources (2%). The countrys installed capacity base has grown dramatically since
2005, when it was only 11.6 GW.
Socioeconomic development forecasts
released in August 2015 show that the
country expects power demand to soar
10.5% a year through 2020. Master Plan
VII calls for massive increases in capac-
ity that would see hydros share reduced

to just 12% by 2030 and coals share
increased to 60% to meet this demand.
The new power plants will need investments of $21.4 billion through 2020,
and an additional $25.6 billion between
2021 and 2025.
But over the past year, officials have
shown less enthusiasm about coals future.
The government has allotted 564 million
metric tons of coal for power generation
between 2015 and 2030, which can only
be sufficient for the demand of the existing plants, said the Ministry of Industry
and Trade last year (Figure 1). Noting that
coal capacity in 2015 was about 6.7 GW
and another 7.6 GW of new installations
were in the pipeline, it underscored that
coal production will not be sufficient for
the 20212030 period.
The decision comes as government documents reveal struggles by state-owned
coal producer Vinacomin to keep exports
steady while meeting domestic consumption. Between 2011 and 2015, the company has been stricken by plunging coal
prices and consumption. Meanwhile, taxes
and fees have raised production costs. The
company has been importing coal from
Indonesia since 2011, and it said imports
1. Short on fuel. Vietnam is reconsidering an energy policy that would make it highly dependent on coal power because the nations domestic production of coal is dwindling. Projects
like the state-run utility EVNs Duyen Hai 3 plant, a three-unit plant with a total capacity of 1,245
MW that is under construction in Duyen Hai district, may need to rely on imported coal. Courtesy: EVN
would gradually increase from about 3

million metric tons in 2016 to 20 million
metric tons by 2020. Domestic production will stall at 42 million metric tons in
2020, it said.
Coal production isnt the power sectors
only development challenge. The Asian
Development Bank (ADB) highlighted in a
December 2015 study of Vietnams energy
sector that the countrys power sector
still needs to continue the reforms process, which is in the most crucial stage,
and reach cost-reflective tariffs.
How the country will bag the investments it needs is also unresolved, the
ADB said. Although private sector investors are gradually being attracted
to power generation, the environment
is not conducive for private sector investments in the expansion of power
transmission and distribution networks.
Hence, the [National Power Transmission
Corp. (NPT)] and power corporations remain solely responsible for meeting investment requirements either using their
own resources or borrowing from export
credit agencies, multilateral and bilateral
banks, and commercial banks.
And, even though it has vastly improved its technical capacity over the
past two decades, the country continues
to grapple with debilitating skills gaps.
EVN and its subsidiaries have a huge
workforce, but most of them are semiskilled and there is a dearth of skilled
managerial staff, the ADB pointed out.
The NPT and the five power corporations
being fairly new entities, human resource
capacity in the key operational areas of
corporate strategic business planning,
accounting, financial management, and
system planning need to be strengthened, and appropriate processes and procedures need to be further developed for
efficient and effective operation.
Vattenfall Completes
Worlds First
Decommissioning of an
Offshore Wind Farm
Vattenfall has dismantled five offshore
wind turbineswith a total capacity of
10 MWat the Yttre Stengrund wind farm
in Kalmar Sound, Sweden. The monthlong decommissioning project was the
first in the world for an offshore wind
farm, but more projects will soon follow
as early turbines reach the end of their
8
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POWER April 2016
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2. The short happy life of Yttre Stengrund. When Yttre Stengrund offshore wind
farms five 2-MW NEG Micon turbines were put up in the Baltic Sea on Swedens east coast in the
early summer of 2001, the world had only installed about 20 GW of onshore wind and 95 MW of
offshore wind. Critics were widely unconvinced the fledgling offshore wind industry would take
off, citing higher capital costs and limited access for operations and maintenance. Swedish utility
Vattenfall recently dismantled the farm, citing financial and technical hurdles. Courtesy: Vattenfall
two-decade lifetimes.
The Yttre Stengrund wind farm had
only been in operation since 2001, said
processbarron.com
205-663-5330
Vattenfall, which bought the farm in

2006. The Swedish utility chose to dismantle the entire wind farm rather than
replace the turbines with more modern

ones for financial and technical reasons, it said. The turbines that were
installed at Yttre Stengrund were an
early model and only about 50 of them
in total were actually produced. The difficulty of getting hold of spare parts and
the huge cost involved in upgrading the
turbines and gearboxes meant that it
wasnt financially viable to replace the
turbines, explained Maria Hassel, who
managed the project to dismantle the
facility for Vattenfall.
Yes, it may seem a bit of a contradiction in terms but Yttre Stengrund was
one of our first wind farms and weve
learnt a lot over the almost 10 years
that weve been operating it, she said.
That knowledge, combined with the
prohibitive cost and technical difficulty
of replacing the turbines, made this a
relatively straightforward decision. We
have locations with better wind conditions in other parts of the country where
we can build new wind power and take
with us the knowledge weve gained
from Yttre Stengrund.
The decommissioning process, essentially the reverse of installation, involved
FUEL | AIR | GAS | ASH

April 2016 POWER
www.powermag.com
11
THE BIG PICTURE: Energy for Power

How much energy is consumed to produce power in the U.S.? Heres a visualization of data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) from a survey of more than 1,900 U.S. power facilities, collected between January 2015 and
December 2015. For non-combustible renewable sources, the EIA uses a heat rate of 9.510 Btu/kWh to calculate total
consumption of fuel for the purpose of generating electricity. That heat rate is the average heat rate for fossil fuel
plants and conceptually represents fossil fuel consumption that is displaced by renewable generation, the EIA
explained. Notes: MMBtu = one million British thermal units; numbers in parenthesis are a percentage of the total
38,853,274,968 MMBtu consumed in 2015. Source: Form EIA-923 detailed data (February 29, 2016)
Copy and artwork by Sonal Patel, a POWER associate editor
Natural Gas
10,396,739,681 MMBtu (27%)
Nuclear
8,338,525,495 MMBtu (21%)
Other Coal and Waste

109,113,406 MMBtu (<1%)
Subbituminous Coal
Petcoke
6,781,659,663 MMBtu (17%)
106,658,446 MMBtu (<1%)
Residual Fuel Oil

Bituminous Coal
91,540,825 MMBtu (<1%)
6,404,692,401 MMBtu (16%)
Other Gas
75,917,520 MMBtu (<1%)
WaterConventional Hydro, Marine
Distillate Fuel Oil
2,388,675,171 MMBtu (6%)
73,615,888 MMBtu (<1%)

*Other sources include synthesis gas
from petcoke; oil waste; other biomass
solids; kerosene; other fuel; refined
coal; other wood waste liquids; other
biomass liquids; jet fuel; sludge waste;
and gaseous propane.
Wind
1,815,715,913 MMBtu (5%)
Other Sources*
31,919,831 MMBtu (<1%)
Waste Heat
29,565,973 MMBtu (<1%)
Blast Furnace Gas
Lignite Coal
28,526,905 MMBtu (<1%)
871,175,093 MMBtu (2%)
Coal-Derived Synthesis Gas

Wood/Wood Waste Solids
24,327,256 MMBtu (<1%)
286,323,629 MMBtu (1%)
Other Biomass Gas
Solar
18,620,653 MMBtu (<1%)
251,757,551MMBtu (1%)
Purchased Steam
14,282,838 MMBtu (<1%)
Geothermal
159,457,516 MMBtu (<1%)
Tire-Derived Fuels
Black Liquor
Agricultural By-Products
12,302,876 MMBtu (<1%)
136,406,542 MMBtu (<1%)
10,770,524 MMBtu (<1%)
Landfill Gas
135,221,619 MMBtu (<1%)
2%
Other
Biogenic Municipal Solid Waste

132,392,767 MMBtu (<1%)
Non-Biogenic Municipal
Solid Waste
127,368,986 MMBtu (<1%)
12
www.powermag.com
1%
1%
Electricity
generated in 2015
5% 3%
6%
33%
15%
TOTAL: 4,087 TWh
16% 20%
POWER April 2016
When you think resources,

think beyond equipment.
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the removal and lowering of rotor blades

and turbine housings by Swedish firm
Svensk Sjentreprenad (Figure 2). The
firm also dismantled the towers and leveled the concrete foundations with the
seabed. There were no major issues with
the work itself but the operation was
delayed by a month due to bad weather,
which was a major risk throughout the
dismantling process, Vattenfall said.
The utility will now restore the site in
such a way that any trace of the former
wind farm will be negligible. It will
also work to remove underwater cables
this summer. A time-lapse video of the
dismantling project can be viewed on
YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=NZPzOmBj1pc.
Later this year, Danish utility DONG
Energy will also move to decommission a
4.95-MW wind power facility off the island
of Lollandat the site of the worlds first
offshore wind farm. DONG Energy put up
the 11 turbines (each 450 kW) at Vindeby
wind farm in 1991, about 2.5 kilometers
off the Danish coast.
According to the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA), the growth of the
offshore wind power sector was irregular
until 2001, with just a handful of small,

near-shore projects (a total capacity of 86
MW) coming online in Dutch and Danish
waters. The worlds first utility-scale
offshore wind farmthe Middelgrunden
project in Danish waterscame online
in 2001 featuring 20 turbines for a total
capacity of 40 MW. That same year, Vattenfall and DONG Energy grid-connected
seven GE 1.5-MW turbines offshore Utgrunden in Sweden. EWEA notes that
the worlds offshore wind capacity was
concentrated in Europe until 2010, when
China inaugurated the Donghai Bridge
Wind Farm.
But even though just a handful of offshore wind farms have been operating for
half their 20- to 25-year design lives, offshore wind farm owners should be wary of
and prepare for what could be exorbitant
decommissioning costs, said consulting
group DNV GL in a March 2015 white paper.
The techniques and logistics for the decommissioning of offshore wind farms are
very site-specific, leading to a wide range
of projected costs, it said. Costs can vary
on project characteristics, as well as the
scope of decommissioningwhether piles
and cables will be removed or left in-situ,
for exampleand site conditions. Then,

as with construction of offshore wind
farms, they will also be very dependent on
the vessels selected and optimization of
marine logistics.
When all aspects of the decommissioning phase are considered, costs may approach [1 million] per turbine unit and
in particular cases the costs are estimated
to be much higher, warned DNV GL. It is
important to capture all the contributions
in a cost model and to recognize those
that have the strongest influence, said the
firm. Furthermore, by considering decommissioning costs early in the life of a project, it is possible to introduce measures to
reduce these costs.
Commission Backs Plan

to Store Worlds Nuclear
Waste in Australian
Outback
A nuclear power plant in Australiaa
country that harbors the worlds largest
resources of uranium but uses no nuclear powerwouldnt be economical, but
building a nuclear storage and disposal
facility in the outback to store the worlds
INNOVATING.
For more than a century, Fluor has executed some of the most
challenging projects in the power industry. Building on our legacy,
today we deliver integrated solutions and innovation for the next
generation of power.
www.fluor.com
2016 Fluor Corporation. All rights reserved. ADGV130416

14
www.powermag.com
POWER April 2016
Material Handling & Size Reduction

for Coal and Biomass Power
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April 11-14, 2016
of coal for improved plant safety.
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Handling a World of Materials

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wholly-owned subsidiaries of Hillenbrand, Inc. (NYSE: HI) 2016 TerraSource Global. All Rights Reserved.
nuclear waste could be highly profitable, a

state royal commission has found.
The Labor state government of South
Australiathe state that produces twothirds of Australias uraniumin February
2015 tasked a royal commission with figuring out the opportunities and risks represented by the states nuclear fuel cycle
activities.
While a full report is due in May, in
draft findings released this February, the
commission starkly advised stakeholders
against building a new nuclear plant under
the existing electricity market structure,
saying it would not be commercially viable . . . in the foreseeable future. However, it said, Australias power system will
need low-carbon power sources to meet
future targets, and that might include
nuclear power. It would be wise to plan
now to ensure that nuclear power would
be available should it be required.
In a statement, the Australian Energy
Councila coalition of 22 major electricity and downstream natural gas entities
welcomed that finding. We currently have
an oversupplied electricity market and
tough investment conditions that make
any new generation investment virtually
unbankable, said the councils head, Matthew Warren. But conditions change, he
added. The electricity industry is already
undergoing significant change to reduce
emissions while adopting new technologies and maintaining an affordable and
reliable supply for consumers.
On the other hand, building an integrated storage and disposal facility to
store international used high-level waste
and intermediate-level waste would certainly be commercially viable, the commission found. The storage component, which
could be operational by the late 2020s,
could generate total revenue of more than
A$257 billion, with total costs of A$145
billion over 120 years, it said, calling for
the establishment of a state wealth fund
to collect and equitably share profits. The
commission made its assessment based on
a conservative baseline price for permanent disposal of A$1.75 million per metric ton of heavy metal for used fuel and
A$40,000 per cubic meter for intermediate-level waste.
But the commission also noted that
while the storage and disposal of international used fuel in a South Australian
location would be technically feasible,
investigation would be needed to identify prospective sites. The prospect
would also need sophisticated planning
and consent-based decision-making,
it said.
16
First Turbine Deployed at

French Tidal Power Farm
The first of two 500-kW OpenHydro tidal
turbines has been successfully deployed
at French utility EDFs much-watched

Paimpol-Brhat tidal project, which is
under construction in North Brittany,
France. When completedas anticipated
3. Titanic. The 16-meter-diameter OpenHydro turbine was towed out to sea on January 20
and deployed by the OpenHydro barge on EDFs Paimpol-Brhat tidal farm site in France. Courtesy: DCNS
4. We all live in ... Developers at GE Power Conversion (GEPC) have affectionately nicknamed this submerged converter The Yellow Submarine. The converter that will allow the
Paimpol-Brhat tidal farm to send power to an onshore substation consists of a steel housing
9 meters (m) long, 5 m wide, and 4 m high, and it encloses all the electro-technical equipment
needed for electrical conversion. Courtesy: GEPC
www.powermag.com
POWER April 2016
before this summerthe tidal farm will

be among the worlds first grid-connected
tidal turbine arrays.
The project located about 16 kilometers out to sea and 35 meters deep
will use the two turbines (Figure 3) designed by DCNS subsidiary OpenHydro to
reap tidal energy and produce power. GE
Power Conversion (GEPC) is developing
a submerged converter (Figure 4) that
will transport power produced by the
turbines to an onshore substation (also
developed by GEPC) on Arcouest Peninsula in Ploubazlanec.
The first OpenHydro turbine was reportedly placed onto the seabed in less
than an hour using a dedicated barge
designed by DCNS. Assembly of the second turbine continues at an industrial
site in Brest.
The deployment marked a milestone
for OpenHydro CEO James Ives, who said
it was pivotal in progressing towards
commercial-scale arrays. EDF and OpenHydro want to leverage expertise gained
from this project to prepare for the Normandie Hydro project, which could see
seven tidal turbines in the Alderney Race
by 2018.
Why Russias Largest

Independent Power
Company Built a Solar
Facility in Siberia
One of Russias largest solar photovoltaic
(PV) facilities has been grid-connected
in Abakan, located in the Republic of
Khakassia.
The Khakass capital in central Russia
just north of Mongolia, historically a place

of political exile, also enjoys a continental
climate characterized by hot summers and
frigid winters.
According to EuroSibEnergo, which
launched the 5.2-MW solar plant (Figure
5) in southeastern Siberia last December,
Abakan boasts more than 310 sunny days
on average over a year. The vertically
5. Siberian sun. EuroSibEnergos newly opened solar photovoltaic facility in Abakan, in

the Republic of Khakassia, comprises 20,000 solar modules arranged over about 44 acres. The
independent power company says the project produces 6.5 million kWh annually. Courtesy:
EuroSibEnergo
April 2016 POWER
www.powermag.com
17
integrated company with major assets

concentrated in Eastern Siberia said this
makes a vast solar potential available for
generation of energy sufficient to meet
1/30 of the Abakan citys total electricity
demand using the clean renewable energy
source.
The project got a boost after it won a
renewable power generation investment
project contest held by the Russian Energy Ministry in 2013. More than 50% of
the plants equipment was built in Russia, EuroSibEnergo noted. The company
even established its own facility to grow
multicrystalline silicon ingots in the city
of Angarsk, in Russias Irkutsk region,
and an invertor assembly facility in the
city of Divnogorsk, Krasnoyarsk Territory.
All in all, the project cost about $8 million, it said.
China Overtakes EUs

Wind Installations
China has edged past the European Union
(EU) in terms of total installed wind capacity, with 145.1 GW to the EUs 141.6
GW. This means that China, which erected
a stunning 30.5 GW in 2015nearly half
of the 63 GW installed worldwidenow
leads the world in cumulative wind capacity (Figure 6).
Data from the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) show that Chinas wind market
is seeing annual growth of 22%, driven
by its policies for clean energy, climate
change, and increasingly stringent pollution standards. Total global capacity
6. Soaring like the wind. China leads

the world in total cumulative wind capacity,
having installed a third of the worlds 432.4
GW by the end of 2015. The U.S. is second
with 74.5 GW, followed by Germany (45 GW),
India (25 GW), Spain (23 GW), the UK (13.6
GW), Canada (11.2 GW), France (10.4 GW),
Italy (10 GW), and Brazil (8.7 GW). The rest of
the world has installed about 67 GW in total.
Courtesy: GWEC
reached 432,419 MW at the end of 2015,

representing cumulative growth of 17%
since 2014.
Among other notable players in the
worlds wind power market was India,
which added 2,623 MW last year and
pushed past Spain into fourth place in
terms of cumulative capacity. Meanwhile, despite economic and political
troubles, Brazil installed a national record of 2,754 MW, with cumulative capacity reaching 8.7 GW. Uruguay took
a giant step closer to its goal of 100%
renewable energy with a 2015 market of
316 MW, bringing total installations to
845 MW, GWEC said.
POWER Digest
Saudi Arabia Mulling Privatization
of State-Owned Utility. State-controlled Saudi Electricity Co. (SEC) is
to be split into four power generation
firms by the end of 2016 to increase
efficiency, Abdullah Al-Shehri, governor of the Electricity and Co-Generation Regulatory Authority, was widely
quoted as telling a television station
on March 1. Al-Sheri reportedly said
that a ministerial committee has been
tasked with weighing privatization, and
that the process would be open to competition. SEC, which has both power
generation and transmission and distribution assets, has a fleet of about 65
GW. While plunging oil prices have hurt
the kingdom economically, power consumption in the nation has increased
sharply. The government has forecast it
will need $90 billion in investments to
meet power demand by 2023.
BKW to Retire First Swiss Reactor in

2019. Swiss utility BKW on March 3 announced that it would retire its Mhleberg
nuclear power plant on December 20, 2019,
instead of in 2022, citing uncertainty surrounding political and regulatory trends.
The 1972-built reactor will be the first
Swiss nuclear plant to be decommissioned.
South African Regulator Rejects

Eskoms Desperate Bid for Tariff
Hike. The National Energy Regulator of
South Africa (NERSA) on March 1 rejected a bid by state-owned utility Eskom
for electricity tariff hikes worth 22.8
billion rand ($1.48 billion) that it says
are critical to avoid load shedding. The
regulator instead allowed Eskom to hike
tariffs by 9.4% in the 20162017 fiscal
year, representing an 11.2 billion rand
($710 million) adjustment for the cost
incurred in power generation during the
20132014 financial year. NERSAs deci18
www.powermag.com
sion was lauded by South Africas biggest power consumers, who have called
on Eskom to make internal savings.
Eskom Chief Executive Brian Molefe said
the decision would put the utility under
financial strain.
Sembcorp, NCC Launch 1,320-MW

Coal Plant in India. Hong Kongbased
Sembcorp Industries on February 27
launched the first unit of its 2,640-MW
Sembcorp Gayatri Power Complex in Nellore, Andhra Pradesh. The $3 billion power
complexthe largest foreign direct investment-driven project on a single site
in the thermal energy sector in India to
datehouses two 1,320-MW supercritical
coal-fired power plants. The first power
plant, Thermal Powertech Corp., India was
successfully completed and commenced
full commercial operation in September
2015. The second power plant, NCC Power
Projects, is expected to be fully operational in 2016.
AES, Mitsubishi Team to Sell

Energy Storage Solution in Asia,
Oceania. The AES Corp., though its
subsidiary AES Energy Storage, and Mitsubishi Corp. on February 9 announced
they had signed an alliance agreement
under which Mitsubishi will work with
AES and local partners to offer AESs Advancion energy storage platform in Asia
and Oceania.
Japan and Egypt to Study Feasibility of Ultrasupercritical Coal Plant.

Japans Marubeni Corp. and Egypts
El Sewedy Electric on March 1 signed
a memorandum of understanding with
state-owned Egyptian Electricity Holding Co. to conduct a feasibility study into
building an ultrasupercritical coal-fired
power plant in the West Mattrouh region,
450 kilometers northwest of Cairo. Egypt,
which is seeing soaring power demand,
wants to install about 12.5 GW of coal
plants by 2022.
NRA: Takahama 1 and 2 Units

Meet Safety Standards. Japans Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) has
determined that the first two units of
the Takahama nuclear power plant meet
safety standards introduced in July
2013. Takahama-1 and Takahama-2 are
780-MW pressurized water reactors that
were commissioned in 1974 and 1975
and are operated by Kansai Electric.
Takahama-3 restarted in late January
2016 and achieved 100% output on February 4, 2016. Takahama-4 is ready to be
restarted and to resume full operation in
late March 2016.
Sonal Patel is a POWER associate
editor.
POWER April 2016
break through
the
NOISE
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Better Level Control Performance
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SNR
The ECLIPSE Model 706 transmitter has a
signal-to-noise ratio nearly 3 times higher
than competitors.
While transmit pulse amplitude (signal size) has helped to make

guided wave radar technology the standard for accurate, reliable level
measurement, the fact is signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) represents a far
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To learn more about the breakthrough ECLIPSE Model 706
GWR transmitter visit radar.magnetrol.com or contact your
MAGNETROL representative today.
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2016 Magnetrol International, Incorporated
Covered Piping Systems

O&M Programs for CCGT
Plants
A great level of risk is present when operating pressurized systems. Over the years,
industry safety concerns have increased
with the occurence of catastrophic events.
To help prevent further loss and damages,
expanded requirements for operations and
maintenance (O&M) were added to the
ASME Code for Pressure Piping, B31.
Power PipingASME B31.1Chapter
VII Operation and Maintenance was created in 2007 to prescribe guidelines that
promoted early failure detection and overall safety. This was a fundamental change
to the scope of B31.1, which up until then
was strictly a design code; going forward,
it now serves a dual purpose.
Plant management teams have relied
on these standards for designing, as well
as updating, their maintenance programs.
Industry experience shows that combined
cycle gas turbine (CCGT) plants owned by
investment groups, municipal power companies, and others without large in-house
engineering staffs find themselves needing to take action. This is less of an issue
for regulated utilities that have established high-energy piping programs, which
may address most of the requirements, although some of the failures, including incidents at W.A. Parish and Iatan, occurred
at plants operated by regulated utilities.
rosion (FAC). Property damage as well as

personnel loss resulted.
O&M Scope and Requirements
The ASME covered piping systems (CPS)
O&M program places the responsibility for
safe operation and maintenance of power
piping on the operating company. Management is charged with implementing a CPS
O&M program plan and conducting surveillances, preventive maintenance, and inspection activities that identify potential
problems before degradation progresses to
component failure or leakage.
A typical scope of a CPS program includes pipe systems that have a 4-inch
nominal pipe diameter or greater and
additional systems the owners deem important. The most common systems and
components are:
High-pressure (HP) steam/main steam,

including heat recovery steam generator (HRSG) HP steam outlet manifold to
steam turbine admission and HP steam
bypass from HP steam piping to cold
reheat (modern combined cycle plant
configurations).
Hot reheat (HRH) steam, including
HRSG reheat steam outlet manifold to
steam turbine admission and HRH bypass to condenser.
Cold reheat (CRH) steam, including HP

steam turbine nozzle to HRSG reheater
inlet manifold, intermediate pressure
(IP) steam from HRSG IP superheater
outlet to merge with CRH steam, the
portion of the HP bypass to CRH that is
downstream of the desuperheater spray
valve, extractions to gland steam systems, extractions for combustion turbine steam injection, and extractions
for condenser sparging.
Low-pressure (LP) steam, including
HRSG LP superheater steam outlet
manifold to steam turbine admission,
LP steam bypass to condenser, and LP
sparging steam to condenser.
Feedwater, including suction from LP
drum (or condensate pumps discharge)
to boiler feedwater pump nozzle, HP
discharge from feedwater pump nozzle
to HRSG HP economizer inlet, IP discharge from feedwater pump nozzle to
HRSG IP economizer inlet, feedwater
supply to fuel gas heater (if installed),
feedwater supply to HP steam bypass
(to CRH) desuperheater sprays, feedwater supply to CRH/seal steam desuperheater sprays, and feedwater supply to
other auxiliary spraywater services.
Chapter VII covers the basic elements

that a program should include. From O&M
1. Hanger support anomaly. In this image, the variable spring pipe support is topped
out and needs to be adjusted. Courtesy: Tetra Engineering Group
Incidents Lead to Changes

The latest version of the ASME Power Piping code, published in 2014, has built a
foundation from tragic industrial experience. It was the work of committees and
experts that drew conclusions from some
unfortunate events. Formal amendments
were enacted in previous editions of the
B31.1 as their work progressed. Two wellknown incidents served as catalysts for
change.
One of them took place at the W.A. Parish Station in 2003. A cold reheat steam
pipe failed and caused a great amount of
property damage. Extensive analysis, using such tools as metallographic examinations, computational fluid dynamics,
finite element analysis, and fracture mechanics, concluded that fatigue cracking
caused the pipeline to explode. In 2007,
the Iatan power plant desuperheater attemperator spray line suffered a failure
incident caused by flow-accelerated cor20
www.powermag.com
POWER April 2016
procedures to condition assessment and

CPS records, the code highlights the most
important facets of the program. Generally, the O&M section focuses on operation
modes, documentation, and assessment
of degradation. Although each operating company can establish its own O&M
procedures, the following aspects shall be
covered:
Operation of piping systems within design limits.

Documentation of system operating
hours and modes of operation.
Documentation of actual operating
temperatures and pressures.
Documentation of significant system
transients or excursions, including
thermal hydraulic events (for example,
steam hammers or liquid slugging).
Documentation of modifications, repairs, and replacements.
Documentation of maintenance of pipe
supports for piping operating within
the creep regime.
Documentation of maintenance of piping system elements, such as vents,
drains, relief valves, desuperheaters,
and instrumentation, necessary for safe
2. Recordkeeping. This computer screenshot shows one way to adequately document

inspection data. Courtesy: Tetra Engineering Group
operation.
Assessment of degradation mechanisms,
including, but not limited to, creep,
fatigue, graphitization, corrosion, erosion, and FAC.
Quality of flow medium (for example,
dissolved oxygen and pH).
Documentation of the condition assessment.
The condition assessment details the

items to be recorded. Special consider-
ation is given to design temperatures

and pressures, pipe material specification, pipe diameters, and the like. The
CPS records emphasize the importance
of easy access to this information. Documents that extend from the beginning of
operation and later modifications are to
stay available.
Initiating a CPS Piping Program
Typically, a CPS program incorporates a
scope (technical and administrative), deg-
Turn Pipe Dreams Into Hard Facts.

ABRESIST wear resistant basalt linings
help reduce costly maintenance repairs
and production downtime. Documented
cases show ABRESIST linings perform at
optimum levels more than 25-30 years
after installation. Kalenborn Abresist
offers over 75 years of experience and:
KALOCER
alumina for
extreme
abrasion.
KALCOR
zirconium
corundum for
applications
up to 1830F.
other protective linings include

alumina and zirconium corundum
linings custom designed
for any industrial application
field survey service
installation assistance
New company name. New products.
Highly resistant to
sliding abrasion,
ABRESIST improves
material flow, and
eliminates periodic
pipe rotation.
Kalenborn Abresist
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5PMM'SFFt'BY
E-mail: info@abresist.com
www.abresist.com
Same mission in Urbana, Indiana.
www.abresist.com
April 2016 POWER
www.powermag.com
21
3. Nondestructive testing. The inspectors shown in this photo are looking for trouble
on Grade 91 piping welds using linear phased array ultrasonic testing techniques. Courtesy:
Tetra Engineering Group
4. Thermal shock. The failure shown here was found on a plants desuperheater attemperator piping. Courtesy: Tetra Engineering Group
radation mechanisms that affect piping, and

overall framework for managing reliability.
The technical side covers hanger inspections, Grade 91 and creep evaluations, FAC
inspections, thermal shock/impingement assessments, and water/steam hammer.
The administrative scope includes management responsibilities, program plan,
inspections, fitness for service (using API
22
579-1/ASME FFS-1-Fitness-for-Service),
corrective actions, and alterations. This
article focuses on the technical part of
the program.
Hanger inspections evaluate the overall state of piping hangers. From visual
inspection to recordkeeping, this plan
determines hanger condition during operation (hot) and offline (cold). Action
www.powermag.com
steps are addressed in the event a field

anomaly is present (Figure 1). Repairs
and alterations to hangers are not required to be performed by an R-stamp
holder and often are performed by
knowledgeable plant maintenance personnel. Hanger adjustments are made in
the cold condition while the settings are
confirmed in the hot condition. A record
of activities is to be kept in field reports
and/or in computer software (Figure 2).
Field inspection intervals are to be performed by a piping engineer every three
years in addition to annual walkdowns
by plant personnel.
Grade 91 and creep evaluations have
become an integral part of power piping
scope. A great deal of industry attention
has been placed on issues related to degraded and failed Grade 91 piping components at combined cycle plants (Figure 3).
Special issues arise when Grade 91 steel
components are welded to dissimilar materials, such as in the case of P91 to P22
or P91 to stainless steel.
Problems also appear when the welding and heat treatment process is inadequate. In such cases, the desired
microstructure is not obtained and the
strength and creep-resistant properties
are usually characterized as being significantly worse than P22. An efficient
inspection plan should detail the procedure and specific instructions for hardness testing equipment, technique, data
requirements, and reporting.
FAC inspection plans are designed to
target key locations commonly affected
by flow velocity, temperature, component shape, water chemistry, fluid quality, and pipe material. An effective FAC
inspection plan integrates the initial
audit, an assessment of all high-risk
areas, a water chemistry review and
consultation for reducing risk, periodic
inspections for FAC-susceptible piping
and equipment, and repairs of defective/deteriorated components. The time
interval for these inspections is between
three and five years.
FAC is commonly known to erode carbon
steel components carrying single-phase
water or two-phase water and steam. Normally, it does not occur in single-phase
steam. The rate of wear is greatest at temperatures close to 300F, with low pH and
oxygen concentrations. Geometry changes
and other flow perturbations also have a
significant effect.
Thermal shock (Figure 4) and impingement assessments include piping that
is at risk of dynamic loading, such as
quench cooling. In combined cycle power
POWER April 2016
5. Highly susceptible areas. It is very

important to conduct inspections to identify
attemperator cracking downstream of spray
injection, such as in this high-pressure steam
bypass to cold reheat piping. Courtesy: Tetra
Engineering Group
plants, components at risk continue to

be piping immediately downstream of the
sprays, including the HP steam bypass to
the CRH (Figure 5) and the HRH bypass
to the condenser. Ultrasonic shear wave
is one of the preferred nondestructive
testing methods to detect early failures.
These inspections are to be conducted
every three years.
The B31.1 code also deals with water and steam hammer. Although these
events are not frequent, they are equally important to monitor for. By definition, water hammer involves large loads
that act aggressively on pipes. Any sudden change in velocity in a liquid-filled
line can produce large pressure pulses,
which can damage the integrity of the
system. Rapid valve closing or opening is a major factor. Steam hammer
occurs for similar reasons. Rapid closure of turbine stop valves can result
in large loads. Accumulated condensate
can be driven through steam and drain
lines at high speed, producing highimpact loads when it hits pipe bends
and valves. Chapter VII Operation and
Maintenance procedures emphasize the
need for recordkeeping and detailed descriptions of such events.
Implementation at CCGT Plants
If a CPS program is absent, immediate action is required. A program that monitors
corrosion, creep, fatigue, and inadequate
piping support systems is appropriate for
all power generating facilities.
If a maintenance program is already
present, only an update is needed. A comprehensive review will establish the portions that agree with the latest guidelines
and the ones that lack conformance. In
addition to code compliance, the incor-
poration process should pay attention to

earlier records of failures and past recommendations. Currently, there is no rigid
mold that a program has to emulate. A
level of flexibility remains available to
upgrade the programs as plant managers
see fit.
Existing programs are allowed to
combine an old set of procedures with
new ones. For example, an active FAC
program can work with a new CPS piping plan and risk assessment, Grade 91
inspection plan, and hanger inspection

plan. Similarly, an active CPS piping
plan and risk assessment and a thermal shock/impingement assessment can
work with a new Grade 91 inspection
plan and hanger inspection plan. There
are no restrictions on how to implement
an O&M program. What matters is that
every aspect of Chapter VII is taken into
consideration.
The sole mission of the ASME B31.1
is to promote safety. The B31.1 Code
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www.powermag.com
23
expands on the necessary guidelines for

operations and maintenance. If an energy facility lacks a program, immediate
action is needed. If it has one, a verification of congruence can determine the
corrective actions needed to fortify the
plan. Whether it is creating or reinventing an active program, code compliance
is always required.
Robert Rosario, PE (robert.rosario@
tetra-eng.com) is a mechanical engineer II
and Peter S. Jackson, PE (peter.jackson@
tetra-eng.com) is director of field services
for Tetra Engineering Group.
6. Vulnerable at ground level. There are countless opportunities for damage when
wind turbine blades are being transported. Courtesy: Creative Commons/Alexi Kostibas
New Quality Assurance

Program Launched for
Wind Turbine Blades
Blades are probably the most delicate part
of a wind turbine and the most susceptible to accidental damage. Some estimates suggest that greater than 90% of
wind turbine blades are damaged to some
degree while in transit from the manufacturer to the wind farm or while being
installed. The damage could be wide and
varied, from picking up stone chips during
delivery (Figure 6) to unintentional harm
to the vortex.
ELIMINATE CORROSION
Blades Deserve Proper Quality

Control
Damage to any element of a turbine when
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POWER April 2016
Power Generation:
Instrumentation and Control for
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Landscape
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7. Standing tall. Daniel Rowcroft, pictured here, is a GEV Wind Power technician
with vast experience inspecting wind turbine
blades. Courtesy: GEV Wind Power
GEV Wind Powera European wind turbine maintenance companyhas developed an innovative factory-to-site quality
assurance (QA) program that could offer
clients peace of mind during the transit of
wind turbine blades and generators. The
new scheme assists in maintaining the
industrys exacting installation schedules,
which are often hindered due to unexpected repairs being necessary.
The process involves carrying out QA
inspections on newly fabricated blades,
which once inspected and signed off, are
transferred to site. On arrival, our technicians will inspect for transportation damage, which if evident, can be repaired
instantly onsite. The blades will then be
certified and given the quality assurance
all clear, said Steve Ross, managing director of GEV Wind Power.
Quality Assurance Doesnt Stop
Upon Delivery
After construction, all wind turbine generators are also inspected as part of the
QA mapping process using the companys
panoblade camera system (for more on
photo scanning, see Innovative Wind
Turbine Blade Inspection and Maintenance
Tools in the May 2015 issue of POWER).
This step catches any damage incurred
during the installation process because
the ultimate goal is for blades to be perfect when the turbine enters service.
Our QA program is a very exciting
innovation for the industry and ensures
that at every stage of the process from

blade manufacture to installation and
commissioning, rigorous quality checks
are undertaken and opportunities to rectify damage are factored in, Ross said.
This new service also provides clients
with accurate and detailed information
should they need to seek recourse for
damage or repairs.
The key to success is that GEV Wind
Power can be counted on as a trusted and
impartial partner, Ross said. He noted that
all of the companys technicians working

in the QA program have extensive knowledge and skillmany have first-hand experience working in blade factoriesso
he said their qualifications are perfect for
their roles as inspectors (Figure 7). Additionally, when problems are identified on
the ground prior to installation, the repairs are easier, safer, more cost-effective,
and less disruptive to the operation.
Aaron Larson is a POWER associate
editor.
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27
The Road to Distributed

Generation: How to Avoid
the Bumps
Nicholas A. Giannasca
istributed generation (DG) is receiving much attention

as a resource that can facilitate the development of a
smarter, more resilient, and more sustainable electric
grid. Several jurisdictions, including New York, are considering
a revision of the traditional utility rate paradigm, with utilities
playing the role of coordinator between distributed resources,
including DG, and consumers. For DG to play such a pivotal role
in the smarter distribution system, however, stakeholders will
need to address and overcome several regulatory, contractual,
and financing challenges.
Getting the Connection

A primary impediment to DG development is regulatory uncertainty. In many jurisdictions, a potential DG host (such as an owner
or operator of a commercial or industrial facility contemplating a
DG installation), faces the prospect of regulation as a utility, and
the associated or perceived administrative burden of subjecting
its business operations to agency scrutiny and review. Coupled
with the complexity of installing a DG facility (electric interconnection, environmental assessment, etc.), the prospect of agency
regulation could be daunting. It is imperative for stakeholders
to lobby for clear and definite rules that exempt the owners or
operators of DG facilities from regulation as utilities, with the
exception of matters pertaining to safety, environmental protection, and reliability.
Electric interconnection rules are another potential impediment to DG development. Some utilities maintain cumbersome
and inefficient rules for review of proposed DG interconnections, and for the actual, physical interconnection to the grid.
These rules in some instances allocate unduly high costs for
system modifications to the DG facility owner. Additionally, interconnection study periods are often protracted. Lenders, developers, and hosts may, and often do, abandon plans for DG
deployment if the timeframe for testing and study threatens a
projects economic viability.
Making It Pay
With regard to economic viability, the owner of the DG facility and the host (assuming the host opts not to own the DG
facility) need to consider the revenue impact related to the
DG facility producing excess generation. In some jurisdictions,
the host as the titled owner of the electricity produced by the
DG facility may be able to inject the excess electricity into the
grid in return for a payment or credit (known as net metering).
The host in such an arrangement typically receives a bill credit
for each kilowatt-hour injected. The credit may be equal to the
recipient utilitys retail rate, or it may be a wholesale rate
28
determined by reference to a real-time price established in the

market administered by a regional transmission organization or
independent system operator.
Net metering arrangements are facing enhanced scrutiny in
many states, with some calling for the downward revision of the
credit mechanism while others advocate for the abolition of such
arrangements altogether. The potential for a net-metering outlet
to become unavailable (through regulatory or legislative action),
places the host in a position of finding an avenue for disposing of the excess generation for economic value. The absence of
that additional revenue, which may be used to offset mandatory
payments to the developer (take-or-pay charges), could impose
serious economic stress on the host.
Financing the Project

Financing considerations factor prominently in DG development.
Certain hosts elect to self-finance the installation of a DG facility, and such a capital outlay and combination of debt has
important impacts for the hosts balance sheet. An alternative to
self-financing is the third-party financing model using a power
purchase agreement (PPA) or energy service agreement (ESA).
Under this model, the host agrees to purchase all of the thermal
and/or electric output of the DG facility from the third-party
owner over a long term. Additionally, such a structure could be
accounted for as an operating lease (and not a capital lease) on
the hosts books.
The financing community continues to develop this third-party
PPA/ESA product, but certain challenges exist in PPA/ESA forms
currently being offered. For example, certain models are overly
lengthy and complex, and reflect performance, breach, and liability provisions skewed in favor of the developer. Additionally,
these contracts confer significant and material rights on lenders,
thereby forcing the host to balance its economic and performance
interest against those of the developer and the lender.
Regulatory agencies and legislators are considering significant
rate and market design policies and structures that will facilitate
the development of DG, and DG is slated to play a pivotal role
in the evolution of the smart and sustainable electric grid. But
for these efforts to succeed in stimulating the development of
DG, appropriately balanced policies, procedures, and contracts
will need to be established in order to surmount certain impediments, including regulatory uncertainty, protracted electric interconnection procedures, the unavailability of net metering, and
the dearth of financeable PPA/ESA models.
Nicholas A. Giannasca (nicholasgiannasca@dwt.com) is a
partner in Davis Wright Tremaine LLPs energy practice in the
firms New York office.
www.powermag.com
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OPERATIONS & MAINTENANCE
Leveraging Drones and Robots for

O&M Savings
Courtesy: ICM
Drones and robots are everywhere these days, but using them effectively for power
plant operations and maintenance (O&M) without breaking the bank is neither simple nor straightforward. Navigating the technological and regulatory issues requires
a keen focus on what you need to do and then matching capabilities closely with
your requirements.
Thomas W. Overton, JD
enormous savings over the alternative.

[U]nmanned aircraft systems are a great
example of boosting our productivity through
technology, Teresa Mogensen, Xcel Energys senior vice president for transmission,
said at the time. Employees will also use
drones to observe environmentally sensitive
areas without the use of trucks, helicopters or
other utility equipment, minimizing the environmental impact.
The drone model Xcel is using, the Pulse
Aerospace Vapor 55, was supplied by Lafayette, Colo.based FLoT Systems and in fact
resembles a small helicopter (Figure 1). The
four-and-a-half-foot-long drone weighs about
30 pounds (depending on its job) and has a
flight time of around an hour, operating in a
5-mile radius from the drone pilot and at altitudes up to 10,000 feet (though as discussed
below, regulations in the U.S. restrict operation to under 400 feet). It can mount both video cameras and lidar inspection systems.
30
www.powermag.com
f youre still thinking of drones and robots

as more toy than tool, think again. The
drones now working in the power sector
have gone far beyond remote-control hobbies
and now resemble something closer to their
autonomous military brethren. In February,
Xcel Energy became the first U.S. utility to
be licensed by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to operate its drones in beyondvisual-range inspection deployments. For a
company that has more than 7,000 miles of
transmission lines, many traversing remote
environmentally sensitive areas, the ability
to send drones out on their own in pre-programmed flight paths is a game-changer.
Previously, the utility had to use helicopters, which are very expensive to operate, disruptive in many areas, and carry
risks for employees on inspections. While
the drones used are not cheapprices for
those capable of such missions run into the
tens of thousands of dollarsthey represent
Know the Law

But putting a tool like the Vapor 55 to work
for your plant or utility is not a matter of
sending a few guys down to the local hobby
store to pick one up.
What a lot of people dont realize, Brett
Velicovich, CEO of Expert Drones/Dronepire
told POWER in a February interview, is that
when you are operating drones for business
purposes, you are required to get an exemption from the FAA that says you can legally
fly your drone over this particular area at this
particular time.
The laws governing commercial use of
drones and other unmanned aircraft systems
(UASs) are unsettled and currently in flux, but
for now, the FAA takes the position that it is entitled to regulate their operations because they
are aircraft under existing law. That means
that to avoid possible legal trouble, plant operators need to follow FAA regulations.
Fortunately, FAA oversight is not terribly
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1. Drone art. The Pulse Aerospace Vapor unmanned air vehicle can mount a variety of payloads and stay aloft up to an hour. The system is being used by utilities to inspect transmission
lines, among other functions. Courtesy: Pulse Aerospace
burdensome. Commercial drone operators

need to apply for an exemption under Section 333 of the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012. (That section, in fact, only
directs the FAA to assess the need for regulating UASs and develop appropriate regulations. The FAA has issued an array of rules in
addition to a proposed framework that would
allow commercial use without prior authorization under certain circumstances.) The process of obtaining a Section 333 waiver and a
Certificate of Waiver or Authorization (COA)
requires the assistance of a lawyer and can
take several months.
A Section 333 waiver, despite what might be
assumed from the name, does not exempt the
UAS operator from federal regulations. Rather,
it allows daytime UAS use under 400 feet in
specific areas (usage at night is prohibited).
There are also an increasing number of
state and local regulations governing the
use of dronesthe types that are allowed
and how and where they may be operated.
For this reason, generators considering
the use of drones in plant operations and
maintenance (O&M) are strongly advised
to consult a lawyer familiar with drone law
before their first flight. Failure to do so
could result in fines and potentially even
criminal prosecution.
Getting Up to Speed
With an FAA exemption in hand and other
legal restrictions dealt with, plant managers
need to spend some time thinking about how
a drone will be used and how it can save time
and money and reduce risk to plant staff. For
that environment, Velicovich said, the local
hobby shop is not going to be able to tell you
what you need.
Jon Amdur, vice president and program
manager for unmanned aerial systems with
34
Aecoms design and consulting services division, told POWER that a lot of clients approach the use of drones without having a
clear idea of what they can do and how they
can help around a plant. Sometimes the expectations are too high, and sometimes they
are too low. They do not really understand
what the systems are capable of. Additionally, he said, the technology is advancing so
rapidly that what can be done today may be
significantly less than what is possible a few
months later.
Thats why many generators and utilities
employing drones do what Xcel did and en-
these things now in a professional way.

Modern commercial drones, Velicovich
explained, have stabilizing technology that
allows them to hover safely even when an
operator is not at the controls. They also
have return home functions that can bring
them back to their starting point with the
push of a button. Commercial drones also
have GPS controls that allow them to follow
precise flight plans as well as automatically
stay out of restricted airspace or areas of the
plant where it might be unsafe for the drone
to go.
The latter function, known as geo-fencing, uses GPS to restrict where a drone will
fly. When the drone reaches the edge of a
restricted area, it will stop in midair even if
the operator tries to make it go further. If
the drone is taken into a restricted area, such
as the vicinity of an airport, it will not even
take off.
Putting Drones to Work

What can you do around your plant with the
right drone? Possibly a lot more than you
realize.
Drones have been available for power
plant inspections for a few years (see Drones
Promise Faster, Easier Inspection of Boilers,
Stacks, Towers, and More in the April 2014
issue), but their capabilities are rapidly growing. In addition to video cameras (available
in resolutions up to 4K), drones can also
mount lidar, infrared (IR), multispectral and
hyperspectral imagers, and essentially any
. . .generators considering the use of drones

in plant operations and maintenance (O&M)
are strongly advised to consult a lawyer
familiar with drone law before their first
flight. Failure to do so could result in fines
and potentially even criminal prosecution.
gage the services of a third-party company
that is familiar with the many varieties of
commercial drones on the market and their
various capabilities. Such firms can perform
the inspections themselves or train plant staff
to operate the generators drone fleet. The latter is less challenging than it might seem.
There is a lot of misconception in the
business world that drones are difficult, Velicovich said, because everyone seems to have
flown or seen flown one of those little quadcopters that lifts off and immediately crashes
into a wall and breaks. Thats not how drones
work nowadays. Its incredibly easy to fly
www.powermag.com
inspection tool that is light enough for the

drone to carry.
Drones are especially well suited for aerial
mapping and 3-D modeling because of their
ability to follow precise, GPS-guided flight
paths. You can literally create a 3-D model
within minutes of a drone flying around your
plant, Velicovich explained. You can completely map your entire infrastructure and
create a digital model of your plant.
(Note that while this sort semi-autonomous
operation is allowed, the operator must still be
at the controls and remain in visual line-ofsight at all times. Fully autonomous operation
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2. Home sweet drone. The Dronebox drone base station can serve as a remote, selfpowered home for a networked system of autonomous drones. Where allowed by local law (its
currently not allowed in the U.S.) Dronebox-based drones can perform pre-programmed inspections or launch automatically when triggered by specific events. Courtesy: H3 Dynamics
is not currently permitted by the FAA.)

Such aerial surveying and mapping is rapidly becoming a popular use for drones in the
power sector, one that is drawing in companies
not previously operating drones. UK Aerial
mapping company Bluesky announced in January that it is partnering with drone airborne
inspection and surveying firm Cyberhawk to
provide a range of aerial survey and mapping
services using UASs. The partnership will allow Cyberhawk, which provides inspection
services for power sector facilities, among
other clients, to offer larger, more sophisticated methods of data collection.
Drones offer particular benefits to renewable generators, as they can dramatically
speed up inspections of wind turbine blades
and solar photovoltaic (PV) panels. (For more
on using drones for PV plant inspection, see
Solar PV O&M Best Practices in a Rapidly
Changing Market in this issue or online at
powermag.com.) Fiberglass turbine blades
need to be regularly inspected for cracking,
but simple methods such as binoculars are inefficient, while more intensive methods such
as climbing the turbine or using helicopters
and cranes can be risky and cost-prohibitive.
A drone, by contrast, can rapidly inspect
blades with close-up, high-resolution video
at far less cost than a helicopter. (For a video
example of such an inspection, see https://
youtu.be/tfQ3FwIL5x8 .) While drones cannot completely replace other methods, they
can help ensure more expensive approaches
are used only where necessary.
Solar PV plants also need regular inspections for panel damage, cleanliness,
and proper operation, but particularly with
megawatt-scale systems, manual inspections
are slow, inefficient, and costly. The use of
thermal imaging has shown great promise in
rapidly identifying failures (malfunctioning
cells and panels typically show up as zones of
36
differing temperature from their neighbors),

but labor costs for panel-by-panel inspections and equipment costs for aerial surveys
with manned aircraft are expensive enough
that few plant owners use them very often.
Drone-mounted thermal imaging, however, can be fast, efficient, and cost-effective.
The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI)
published a report in August 2015 assessing
the possibilities for UASs in solar PV plant
O&M, and concluded that, Although it is
unlikely that UAS can be used to perform
corrective maintenance tasks (i.e., physical
repairs), they are well positioned to speed
up preventative maintenance practices. For
example, UAS can provide comprehensive
IR scans of an entire plants modules at a
fraction of the cost and time of manual
inspections. This means that potential performance issues can be identified plant-wide
immediately and accurately without the use
of statistical extrapolation, the report notes.
that automatically tags and records location

and other metadata for inspection photos,
creating a customized, searchable map of
the inspection and all photos associated with
each inspected asset.
The future legality of completely autonomous drones is uncertain, but the drone industry is not waiting. One possible view of
the future can be seen in the Dronebox, a
product introduced by Singapore-based H3
Dynamics in February (Figure 2). The Dronebox is a drone base station that allows prepositioning of autonomous drones, providing
environmental protection, charging via solar
PV panels and backup fuel cells, and remote
networking. Using the Dronebox, a fleet of
drones can perform regular programmed inspections or be triggered into action by specified events (a video of the Dronebox in action
can be viewed at: http://bit.ly/1TBWDLO).
Though the market is new and its not
clear how many generators are using drones
in their O&M, the field is clearly growing.
Navigant Research estimated in a September
2015 report that global revenue for drones
and robotics technologies used in the transmission and distribution sector would grow
from $131.7 million in 2015 to $4.1 billion
by 2024. Meanwhile, revenue from use of
UASs for wind turbine inspections is expected to top $6 billion over the same period.
Xcel is far from the only U.S. utility pushing
forward with dronesothers such as Duke
Energy are looking at how drones can cut
O&M costs and streamline operations.
If youre looking to learn more about
drones and how to best use them around your
plant, POWER is presenting a special workshop on drones at this years ELECTRIC
POWER Conference & Exhibition in New
Orleans April 1821 (see sidebar).
Drone Support
These Are the Robots Youre

Looking For
Solutions for managing all that data are growing as well. Drone firm Sentera in October
launched a software platform called OnTop
What if you need to employ testing units or

other equipment that is too heavy, bulky, or
otherwise unsuitable for a drone to carry? Ro-
Drone University at ELECTRIC POWER 2016

If youre interested in learning more about
using drones and robots in and around
your plant, you wont want to miss a special workshop at the ELECTRIC POWER Conference & Exhibition April 1821, 2016,
at the Morial Convention Center in New
Orleans, La. During the workshop, Drone
University: Utilizing Drones in Your Power
Plant, drone experts will show attendees
how drones can help assess safety conditions at plant sites, inspect equipment
www.powermag.com
deep inside hard-to-reach areas, evaluate

temperature distribution through aerial
thermal imaging cameras, and more. Attendees will experience hands-on flight
instruction and hear about future technologies that will offer substantial value to
power plant professionals, as well as technical and regulatory requirements to safely
integrate drones into operations. A video
preview of the workshop can be viewed at
https://youtu.be/9V_ZJ5AIZ8g.
POWER April 2016
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41M022016H

3. Four-wheeler. AREVAs newest nuclear plant inspection robot, RIANA, is a versatile system capable of a variety of inspection tasks. Though shown here with wheeled drive, it can also
mount caterpillar tracks. Courtesy: AREVA
botic inspection systems are the answer, and

options are growing rapidly here as well.
Nuclear power plants have long been a
growth area for robotics because of the number of areas in a plant where it may be unsafe
for inspection personnel to go without cumbersome protective gear, or that cannot be
manually inspected without time-consuming
preparations such as draining storage tanks.
One solution for the latter problem is the
Inspector robot by Newton Research Labs
and IHI Southwest Technologies, which can
conduct semi-autonomous nondestructive
examination (NDE) of storage tanks without
requiring them to be drained or taken out of
service, and at far less risk to plant staff than
using divers (see Robotic Inspections of
Nuclear Power Plant Storage Tanks in the
February 2015 issue).
Robots have been used for inspections of
the damaged reactors at Fukushima Daiichi in
Japan, where continuing high levels of radiation (>5 Sv/hr) make direct inspections impossible. In that case, the 510 Packbot by iRobot
(the same company that makes the Roomba
robotic vacuum cleaner) was used to conduct
assessments of damage to the reactors.
AREVA released its latest generation of
nuclear plant robots last year, what it calls
RIANA (Robot for Investigations and Assessments of Nuclear Areas, Figure 3).
According to the company, RIANA is a motorized platform with interchangeable measurement or sampling modules that can be
adapted to the needs of the job. Its available
with four-wheel or caterpillar track drive and
is equipped with 3-D and thermal cameras
as well as on-board lidar to navigate around
obstacles and position itself precisely within
confined spaces. The first RIANA was delivered to the French Atomic Energy Commission last June.
38
4. Tubular. Gecko Robotics has introduced

a robotic boiler tube inspection system that
can significantly reduce the time and expense
involved in ultrasonic tube inspections. The robot climbs the tube wall without the need for
scaffolding and produces more precise and
accurate data than handheld scanners. Courtesy: Gecko Robotics
Robotic inspection systems are becoming

more specialized and tailored for power plant
needs. One growth area is boiler tube inspections. As anyone who has ever worked in a
thermal plant knows, tube inspections are a
difficult, dangerous, and unpleasantbut criticalelement of power plant O&M. Tube wall
failures are a common cause of forced outages,
which means accurately predicting and preventing them is an excellent way of keeping revenue
up and unnecessary costs down.
Performing NDE of boiler tubes by hand is
slow and difficult enough to make it a major
undertaking that requires several days of work,
not just for the inspection itself but also for the
time to set up and take down the necessary
scaffolding. Robots are coming on the market,
however, that can conduct precise automatic
inspections in a fraction of the time, and without requiring extensive support equipment.
Gecko Robotics has introduced a robotic
tube inspection system that can conduct ultrasonic and visual testing of boiler tube walls
in less time than would be required without
robotic assistance (Figure 4). Jake Loosarian, Geckos CEO, spoke to POWER about it
in February. Using the climbing robot, you
can get your results about seven times faster
than with previous methods. We can identify
any problems for the plant manager, and they
can then decide where they need to do repairs
instead of taking a lot of time to locate the
trouble spots.
Because the system is automated, its capable of more precise and accurate inspection
results than handheld scanners. Measurements are collected at different angles by an
array of eight ultrasonic sensors.
their ability to remove the need for staff to

ascend to potentially dangerous heights.
Ithaca, N.Y.based International Climbing
Machines (ICM) has worked with EPRI to
adapt its climbing robots to conduct NDE
of very large concrete structures like dams
and nuclear plant containment buildings
shown in the header photo (a video of the
project can be viewed at https://youtu.be/
ohcoGDn1rL0). Using lidar positioning,
highly accurate maps of the inspection data
can be created. The ICM climbing robot can
ascend a variety of surfaces and remains attached through vacuum suction. ICMs robots have also been used for inspections of
wind turbines (see the cover of this issue),
as well as for maintenance tasks such as
spraying coatings and sandblasting.
According to ICM President Sam Maggio,
the robot is capable of climbing any surface
on which it can maintain a vacuum seal, unlike robots that rely on magnets and that can
only climb ferromagnetic materials. Its the
vacuum chamber, which is surrounded by a
rolling, very flexible seal, that allows it to
go over very rough surfaces as well as surface obstacles, Maggio said. Because the
seal rolls over the surface rather than being
dragged, the robot will not damage the surfaces it climbs.
Climbing High
Going Deep
Climbing robots are among the options with

the most potential for plant use because of
Robots have been used for internal inspections of large pipelines for years, but the
www.powermag.com
POWER April 2016

5. Snaking the pipes. GE Hitachi recently rolled out the Surveyor ultrasonic inspection robot for use inside buried piping.
The robot can navigate bends and elbows and
operate inside piping as narrow as 6 inches,
without requiring the piping to be drained.
Courtesy: GE Hitachi
when you do that, you increase the opportunity to provide more data, and thus drive
down the costs of the service.
If youre enthusiastic about the possibilities of UASs and robots, you may be wondering how soon theyll be able to go beyond
inspections to performing actual maintenance. Robotic maintenance is still in the
early stagesrobots designed by Toshiba
are being proposed for repairs at Fukushima
in the next few yearsbut as far as UASs,
Aecoms Amdur suggested thats still a ways
off. I think given the level of accuracy and

detail that is required for that, I dont think it
is going to happen any time soon.
Still, its coming at some point. Velicovich
said, We get requests all the time from clients who have thought up some new role for
drones, even if there are limits to what can be
carried. As for UASs performing plant maintenance, I very much see the day when we
could be doing that.
Thomas W. Overton, JD is a POWER

associate editor.
I am
IN CONTROL
With CIRCOR Energy General
& Severe Service Control Valves
solutions are growing small enough to allow inspections of piping as narrow as 6
inches. GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH)
recently introduced what it calls the Surveyor, a self-propelled, articulated robot
that can inspect filled, partially filled, and
dry piping from 6 inches to 48 inches in
diameter (Figure 5). The robot can negotiate elbows and travel up to 1,000 feet from
its entry point.
GEH personnel tested the Surveyor at
the South Texas Project nuclear plant in
December 2014, and the robot was able to
inspect a length of buried pipe without requiring modifications to the piping system.
An earlier version of robot has been used
for inspections of buried piping in the oil
and gas sector, but this was the first time it
was used at a nuclear plant.
According to the spokesman Jonathan Allen, GEH is in discussions with several customers about the Surveyor and is planning
for a deployment at a U.S. nuclear power
plant this spring.
From turbine bypass systems to balance of plant applications,

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service to highly engineered severe service control valve
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and reduce long term maintenance costs.
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comes to achieving plant productivity, think CIRCOR Energy.
Contact us today and well show you how you can be in total control.
Looking Ahead
Tim Saffold, Aecoms executive vice president of joint unmanned systems and training
solutions, suggested that the drone industry is
poised for some dramatic gains in productivity once the FAA settles on a clear regulatory
scheme for autonomous, beyond-line-of-sight
operation. When we have the proper procedures in place, he said, its going to open
up a lot of opportunity. Its going to increase
the efficiency by an order of magnitude, and
Continuously Improving
Flow Control. Worldwide.
Leslie Controls Schroedahl RTK

www.circorenergy.com/controlvalves
April 2016 POWER
www.powermag.com
39
Solar PV O&M Best Practices in a

Rapidly Changing Market
Courtesy: Ace Window and Solar Cleaning
A surge in the installation of large-scale solar photovoltaic (PV) systems around

the world has underscored the importance of cost-effective operations and maintenance practices to boost lifecycle plant economics.
Sonal Patel
A Surging Solar PV O&M Market

According to a November 2015 report published by GTM Research, the global market
for megawatt-scale operations and maintenance (O&M) for PV installations was
preparing to surpass 133 GW by the end of
40
2015 and expected to more than triple by

2020, totaling more than 488 GW, driven
predominantly by China, the U.S., and Japan.
The relatively juvenile market is currently in
a state of flux as investors and vendors vie
for market share, as PV O&M expert Cedric
Brehaut, a consultant with market research
firm SoliChamba, who authored the GTM
Research report, told POWER (Figure 2).
Traditionally, the largest and fastest
growing providers had been engineering,
procurement, and construction (EPC) or development firms. Today, vertically integrated
firms manage about 10 GW of the worlds
fleet, followed by affiliated service provid-
ers (8 GW), independent service providers

(ISPs, 6.2 GW), and EPCs (6.2 GW). Lately,
the market has tipped in favor of ISPs, who
were once marginal players, said Brehaut.
These include asset managers like Europebased Vector Cuatro and WiseEnergy and
O&M providers like greentech and ENcome
Energy Performance. Among U.S. companies, O&M and asset management provider
Solarrus (parent company of True South Renewables and MaxGen Energy Services) has
grabbed a notable chunk.
Another trend that is telling of the O&M
markets potential is that over the past few
years, a number of developers and EPCs
1. Yearly U.S. utility-scale solar photovoltaic capacity additions. Courtesy:

SEIA/GTM Research U.S. Solar Market Insight
10,000
Yearly installed solar capacity (MW, DC)
n 2000, the world had installed just 1 GW

of solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity (in DC
termssee the sidebar, AC or DC?), a
number that had surged to 39 GW by 2010
and 176 GW in 2014. Fueled by supportive
policies and climate concerns, it is poised to
see even more explosive growth: Investors
may sink $2 trillion into solar PV between
2015 and 2040, predicts the International
Energy Agency (IEA) in its World Energy
Outlook 2015. That could mean that by 2040,
the global market could exceed 1,000 GW of
installed capacity.
So far, solar PV on buildingsincluding
residential and commercial systemshave
dominated the sector, accounting for more
than 60% of global solar PV capacity in
2014. But while the European Union will
continue focusing on building-sited PV, the
U.S., China, and India will step up deployment of utility-scale PV, the IEA suggests,
pushing global capacity of utility-scale solar
PV to increase almost eight-fold from 2014
to 2040. The U.S. alone is anticipated to add
41 GW between 2015 and 2020 (Figure 1).
Thats a lot of solar panels. And a massive
pool of resources will be required to keep
them working optimally.
9,000
8,000
7,000
6,000
5,000
4,000
3,000
2,000
1,000
0
2010
Utility (PV) 266.5
2011
784.5
2012 2013 2014 2015E 2016E 2017E 2018E 2019E 2020E

1803.2 2855.0 3921.9 4314.3 9237.0 4839.0 5681.3 7198.4 9969.4
www.powermag.com
POWER April 2016
AC or DC?
Capacities of photovoltaic (PV) power
plants are typically given in terms of
direct current (DC) power. DC capacities
represent the maximum output of the solar panels, which can vary substantially
from the maximum output from the inverter, as alternating current (AC) available for use. Throughout this article, DC
rating is provided.
2. Global megawatt-scale PV O&M and asset management competitive landscape overview. This graphic illustrates the state of the market as of September 2015, naming its five biggest players. They include vertically integrated firms First Solar (4.3
GW), SunEdison (3.2 GW), and SunPower (1.8 GW)all of which manage large North American
fleets. They also include Schneider Electric (1.9 GW)just one of a number of inverter companies (among them, ABB, Enphase Energy, and SMA) that are seeking O&M contractsas well
as independent service provider WiseEnergy (1.5 GW). Courtesy: Megawatt-Scale PV O&M
and Asset Management 20152020: Services, Markets and Competitors (GTM Research and
SoliChamba Consulting)
have turned their focus to O&M and/or asset

management, many of them creating subsidiaries or spin-off companies dedicated to this
new service business, Brehaut said.
Insource or Outsource?
Considering the crowded market, arguments
can be made for performing O&M internally, as well as for hiring a service provider, or
for combining insourcing and outsourcing.
Experts told POWER that entities that typically consider the in-house option include
utilities with portfolio sizes beyond 100
MW or those looking to slash operational
expenses (like European PV generators facing feed-in tariff cuts), as well as independent power producers.
The consideration typically hinges on
the cost of O&M. And while cost is significantly lower for solar PV than for any other
renewables, it varies wildly, depending on an
assortment of factors. Major variables influencing the extent and cost of PV O&M range
from site characteristics and environment
including the size of the system and type of
installation (whether its roof-mounted or
ground-mounted, for example)to the availability of water. The scope of O&M service
and scale, meanwhile, determine labor and
infrastructure needs, as do the size and density of the plants in a companys portfolio.
Yet, knowledge gaps remain. An expert
from the International Finance Corp. pointed
out that because few large-scale solar projects have been generating beyond the end of
their design life, its difficult to predict O&M
costs beyond a 25-year timespan.
Consider O&M from the Start

Whether or not O&M will be outsourced,
system owners should consider O&M during
design, engineering, and construction to help
drive the selection of low- or no-maintenance
alternatives, if available. This also allows owners to make use of connected inverters for remote testing and updates and provide access
to and clearance around equipment. Keeping
O&M in mind from day one will enable them
to apply the 2016-issued IEC 62446-1:2016
42
Table 1. Major elements of PV O&M. Source: EPRI, 2010

Task
Frequency (typical)
Preventative maintenance
Panel cleaning
12x/yr
Vegetation management
13x/yr
Wildlife prevention
Variable
Water drainage
Variable
Retro-commissioninga
1x/yr
Upkeep of data acquisition and monitoring systems (such as electronics, sensors)
Undetermined
Upkeep of power generation system (such as inverter servicing, balance-of-system

12x/yr
inspection, tracker maintenance)
Corrective/reactive maintenance
Onsite monitoring/mitigation
Variable
Critical reactive repairb
As needed (high priority)
Non-critical reactive repairc
As needed
Warranty enforcement
As needed
Condition-based maintenance
Active monitoringremote and onsite options
Continuous
Warranty enforcement (planned and unplanned)
As needed
Equipment replacement (planned and unplanned)
As needed
Notes: a. Retro-commissioning identifies and solves problems that have developed during the course of the PV
systems life.
b. Critical reactive repairs address production losses issues.
c. Non-critical reactive repairs address production degradation issues.
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POWER April 2016
@amec_fw
https://www.linkedin.com/company/amecfw
www.youtube.com/user/amecfw
https://www.facebook.com/amecfw

(Requirements for testing, documentation and
maintenancePart 1: Grid-connected systemsDocumentation, commissioning tests
and inspection), which requires documentation of the system, array testing, and a wholesystem performance test.
If the decision is made to outsource O&M,
vetting the financial solvency of the O&M
service provider will be necessary, because
financial distress could have a negative
impact on the level of system quality, says
the Solar Access to Public Capital (SAPC)
working group, whose membership includes
more than 450 solar developers, financiers
and capital managers, law firms, rating
agencies, accounting and engineering firms,
and other stakeholders engaged in solar asset deployment.
Also, it is prudent to verify that a contractor uses a company health and safety manual
to keep injuries at bay, making sure that all
site personnel will be equipped with complete personal protective equipment for the
task, including fall protection from roofs and
arc flash protection for working on live circuits. Finally, contracts should clearly articulate insurance requirements, it recommends.
O&M Best Practices Are Evolving

Over the years, as more utilities have become solar power generators, some common
goals have evolved that have given shape
to PV O&M best practices. Essentially, the
goals are to maximize system economics by
increasing plant uptimes and decreasing service costs. Critically, operators also want to
protect asset value and longevity and comply
with applicable regulations.
Although practices and approaches are not
standard and have been implemented in various proprietary ways, over the years a few
basic strategies to achieve these goals have
emerged. A handful of best practices guides
are also in the works, including one from
the PV O&M Collaborative, which is part of
SAPC. A free version of the groups working
paper (nrel.gov/docs/fy15osti/63235.pdf) has
been made available by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).
One setback to having different O&M
practices is that performance metrics are defined differently, that paper notes. A system
characterized by a guarantee to deliver 1,000
MWh/year would be difficult to compare and
bundle with another that has a guarantee to
be operational 90% of the time. Investors
need clear performance metrics and evaluation methods. Also, differences in types of
systems, geographic location, and climate
conditions can confound securitization by
investors, it says, noting that investors want
to know exactly how much it will cost to perform required O&M. Cost estimates must
44
Drones for Solar Plant Inspection

A notable trend involves the increasing
use of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS)
dronesfor a variety of operation and
maintenance tasks at solar facilities in
general and photovoltaic (PV) systems in
particular (Figure 3).
According to the Electric Power Research
Institute (EPRI), these devices can currently perform a variety of tasksincluding visual imaging (of modules, wiring, and other
plant components), infrared thermography,
and vegetation monitoringthat have the
potential to update largely manual conventional processes and more efficiently identify and diagnose PV system performance
issues. And there are more applications under development, including for data analytics through pattern recognition and change
detection.
For utilities, given the falling system
costs and technical advancements, drones
offer wide benefits. As well as their time
savings and labor efficiency, they can
be dispatched flexibly to gain access to
locations (such as rooftops) not otherwise easily reached. Measurements taken
via UAS imaging of rooftop and groundmounted systems offer improved accuracy
over manual methods. And, the flexibility
of the UAS platform lets a single drone
perform a variety of tasks, creating benefit-stacking opportunities.
be uniform and predictable so that they can
be bundled, yet they should reflect the factors that cause O&M costs to vary from site
to site.
A PV O&M Plan
SAPC recommends establishing an O&M
plan that considers the context of the performance period required to generate a sufficient
return on investment. The O&M manager
should retain this plan and archive all initial
planning, warranty, design, and other system specification documents; that manager
should also revise the plan as the system is
built, maintained, and modified over time.
Typically, the asset lifeabout 25 years
is considered the performance period, even
though ownership may change. An aligning
monitoring program is also chosen, and a
system owner may seek a performance contract wherein a specified performance indicatorsuch as MWh/year energy deliveryis
guaranteed.
According to SAPC, though many perforwww.powermag.com
3.
Sun bird. Drones can perform a

variety of photovoltaic-related O&M tasks,
particularly those related to visual imaging.
Courtesy: Skycatch Inc.
EPRI noted in an August 2015 study,

however, that a number of challenges
must be overcome before the technologys commercial appeal for PV O&M can
be unlocked. Foremost among them is the
novelty of the technology. Then, there
are public safety, privacy, and liability
concerns. (See Leveraging Drones and
Robots for O&M Savings in this issue or
online at powermag.com for more on the
legal and regulatory issues concerning
the use of drones.) Though the technical
capabilities of UAS have improved drastically over the past few years, features
such as sense-and-avoid safety protocols
are needed to enable additional operating
functions (e.g., autonomous flights) that
can improve upon the tools economic
proposition, EPRI said.
mance indicators have been proposed, it is
prudent to select a type of key performance
indicator (KPI) that minimizes cost but ensures optimal system performance under
varying conditions. KPIs include availability
(or uptime), which refers to the percentage
of time that a condition is metusually that
the entire system is at full operating capability and not impaired for any reason. Other
KPIs include energy delivery, specific performance (or energy delivery normalized by
plant rated capacity), percent of system rating, and performance ratio (defined by IEC
61724 or ASTM E2848).
Finally, compared to residential systems,
utility-scale systems should have a larger
focus, including financial goals and detailed
monitoring. The investment and revenue of
large systems justifies more detailed monitoring for anomalies in performance and
increased communications and sensors to
trigger performance or corrective maintenance activities and alerts, SAPC suggests.
Considerations include monitoring with di-
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4. A raybot. A number of innovative solutions have been introduced over the years to tackle
the labor-intensive task of solar panel washing. Ecovacs Robotics recently became a 2015 CES
Innovation Awards honoree for its water-free cleaning robot that can clean utility-scale solar panels up to a 55-degree angle. The bot sweeps, blows, and vacuums the panels to remove dust
and dirt. Similar solutions are gaining interest in the marketplace. Courtesy: Ecovacs Robotics
the frequency of PM measures and reduce

impacts and costs of corrective measures.
However, condition-based maintenance may
come with a higher upfront price tag, given
communication and monitoring software and
hardware requirements.
Cleaning Panels
5. Hot spots. This image was taken by a Testo thermal imaging camera, which was used
to detect defective cells that can overheat and damage the surrounding cells, reducing the efficiency and power output of the system. Courtesy: Testo
Preventative/Scheduled Maintenance.
nance, yield, and cash flow through the life of

the system, SAPC clarified. Protocols will
depend on system size, design, complexity,
and environment.
As with other power generation systems,

preventative maintenance (PM) entails routine inspection and servicing of equipment
to prevent malfunctions and unnecessary
production losses (see sidebar, Drones for
Solar Plant Inspection). However, operators
should be wary of upfront costs associated
with PM programs, which could require superfluous labor activity, warned the Electric
Power Research Institute (EPRI) in a June
2010 white paper. Increased inspection and
maintenance activity also has the potential to
contribute to site wear and tear, it said.
Preventative maintenance must be balanced by financial cost to the project. Therefore, the goal is to manage the optimum
balance between cost of scheduled mainte-
Maintenance to address equipment breakdowns can be minimized through more-proactive PM and condition-based maintenance
strategies, EPRI said (see table). According
to SAPC, repairs should be delayed only if
there is an opportunity to do the repair more
efficiently in the near future. Response time
for alerts or corrective action for the O&M
function should be specified as part of the
contract but will be typically 10 days or less
for non-safety related corrective maintenance
service, it recommends.
Condition-Based Maintenance. Regimes that use real-time data to prioritize and
optimize maintenance and resources offer
greater O&M efficiency, promising to lower
agnostics to trigger corrective maintenance,

as well as analytics to optimize conditionbased O&M, such as cleaning.
46
Corrective or Reactive Maintenance.
www.powermag.com
Foremost among the myriad tasks that are

condition- or study-dependent is panel washingwhich should be done without brushes
or solvents, using just plain water or mild
dishwashing detergent, SAPC suggests.
EPRI reported in 2010 that PV panel performance can annually degrade by 1% to 5%
without washing (noting that panel efficiency itself degrades roughly 0.75% per year).
Based on external factors, panel washing
can improve efficiencies by as much as 10%
to 15%.
The most common method for cleaning
large-scale PV installations today involves
trucking large quantities of water to the
site and then using a hose and squeegee to
manually clean the panels, as shown in the
photo that opens this article. However, this
can prove time-intensive and expensive
especially in desert environments. (This can
be less of a concern in other environments: A
study by Arizona State University concludes
that 0.2 inches of rain is nearly equivalent to
physically cleaning the modules and can restore production levels to 99.5% of a cleaned
module.) A 3,604-MW PV farm in Nevada,
for example, could need as much as a billion
gallons of water over its lifetime for O&M,
says a July 2013 report from Sandia National
Laboratories. Cost-wise, that could add up
substantially. A number of companies are
developing water-free cleaning methods, including Ecoppia and Ecovacs Robotics (Figure 4).
Necessary Inspections
SAPC recommends annual inspections of
AC wiring, including inspection of electrical
boxes for corrosion or for intrusion of water
or insects, as well as of DC wiring, looking
for cracks, defects, overheating, arcing, short
or open circuits, and ground faults.
Every year, inspections should also be
conducted of monitoring instruments (such
as the pyranometer) with handheld instruments to ensure that they are operational and
within specifications. Also examine the PV
array, checking all mounting systems and
other hardware for corrosion or damage.
A PV module specialist should also check
for hot spots using an infrared camera (Figure 5) annually, a journeyman should inspect
the transformer, and an electrician should
take a look at the motor to ensure electrical
connections are sound.
POWER April 2016
A Game-Changing Inverter Technology?

Solar PV technology is rapidly evolving,
and several groundbreaking components
are on the horizon, as PV O&M expert Cedric Brehaut pointed out. A recent arrival
in the U.S. market, three-phase string inverters are disruptive technology when it
comes to O&M practices, he said. Thats
because there is no need to repair a
string inverter. Until recently, installers
used three single-phase inverters.
Regardless of which internal component may have failed, the resolution is
the same: remove the unit and replace
it with another one, which technicians
For a checklist of critical O&M activities,
see documents associated with this story online at powermag.com.
Invest in Critical Inverter

Inspection
Inverters are perhaps the most important
component in a PV system. An inverters
basic function is to invert the direct current
output from the PV modules into alternat-
typically carry in their truck. The defective unit is then sent to the manufacturer
for exchange, Brehaut said. There is no
management of spare inverter parts, and
technicians do not need expertise in diagnosing and resolving issues inside the
inverter.
Still, string inverters dont come without disadvantages. For one, they tend
to fail more frequently due to the larger
number of inverter units per PV system.
This means more truck rolls will be necessary to perform corrective maintenance,
he said.
ing current (AC) to be fed to the grid. The
majority of utility-scale PV installations use
central inverters of 500 kW and larger that
are integrated with external transformers that
feed into a medium-voltage AC collection
system.
According to EPRI, inverters are far and
away the main culprit for unplanned PV plant
downtime. SAPC notes that inverter reliability has continued to increase (see sidebar, A
Game-Changing Inverter Technology?). Today, 10-year warranties are commonly available and 20-year extended warranties/service
plans are also increasingly used.
Best practices recommended by SAPC include deciding whether an inverter is to be replaced or repaired based on its size, type, and
associated cost. Replacement is preferred
over repair when spare parts availability and
lead time trigger an upgrade, it says.
Operators should include remote monitoring to confirm inverter status, reset the
inverter, and diagnose problems. In remote
locations, it is advisable to stock component
replacements onsite, especially for equipment commonly in need of repair, such as
driver boards. Replacement micro-inverters
should also be stored onsite, it suggests.
Meanwhile, inverters should be inspected
monthly, SAPC recommends. Inspectors
should observe instantaneous operational
indicators on the faceplate of the inverter to
ensure that the amount of power being generated is typical of the conditions. They should
also compare current readings with diagnostic benchmark and inspect inverter housing or
shelter for physical maintenance required.
Sonal Patel is a POWER associate

editor.
April 2016 POWER
www.powermag.com
47
Weighing Costs and Benefits in

Hydropower Maintenance and
Upgrade Decisions
Courtesy: Creative Commons/Gregg M. Erickson
Choosing whether to maintain or upgrade hydropower plant components can be

difficult. Poor original equipment reliability can force changes, but often a detailed
cost-benefit analysis is needed to make decisions. Understanding how others have
tackled the process can help ensure success at your plant.
Aaron Larson
lthough other renewable sources of

energy may be growing at a faster
rate, more electricity continues to be
generated in the U.S. by conventional hydropower than by wind, solar, and geothermal
power combined. A market report released
last year by the U.S. Department of Energy
Wind and Waterpower Technologies Office
noted that of the 2,198 active hydro plants
in the U.S., most of the 79.64 GW of total
installed capacity is located at large projects
built between 1930 and 1970.
A lot has changed since those plants began generating power. Technology and design techniques have evolved, allowing vast
improvements to all kinds of power plant
equipment. Digital governing systems now
offer plants programmable features, providing flexibility and making what used to be
difficult changes simple. New runner designs
and insulation improvements have enhanced
48
efficiency and increased capacity. Composite

bearings have made maintenance easier and
less time consuming.
So the question many decision-makers
must answer is: Should we continue to
maintain the old equipment in our relatively
reliable facilities or should we upgrade to
new equipment that captures the benefits offered by the latest technology?
Evaluating the Risk

Making that type of decision may seem pretty
straightforward, but Darin Johnson, president
of Seattle-based BIS Consulting, told POWER
that there is more to it than a person might
think. Determining if a new piece of equipment that offers a 2% efficiency improvement
is a cost-effective upgrade can require the use
of heavy-duty dispatch models.
Another question that often arises is: If a
unit is being taken out of service for an exwww.powermag.com
tended period of time to complete one plant

improvement, does it make economic sense
to increase the scope and take care of other
upgrades at the same time?
Thats where a company like BIS Consulting can help; it has been involved in several
hydropower assessments as part of life extension programs. The company basically
applies a risk-based approach to estimate
the benefits of replacing or refurbishing old
components. It determines the likelihood of
component failure, the consequences if a failure occurs, and then weighs the risk against
the incremental capital costs to conclude
whether an upgrade is justified.
Were sort of doing the calculations that
everybody is thinking about, Johnson said.
Most companies understand what the
tradeoffs are, but actually performing the
calculations explicitly and documenting all
of the assumptions requires more than just
POWER April 2016

1. To replace or not to replace, that is the question. In the graph shown here,
the remaining economic value of the exciter is the difference between its risk-cost curve and
the cost of a new one up to the point at which it would be replaced (shaded region). Early replacement, as part of an upgrade program, must produce savings at least this large to be justified. Source: BIS Consulting
Annual cost
$45,000
$40,000
$35,000
$30,000
$25,000
$20,000
$15,000
$10,000
$5,000
$0
2. Grand Coulee step-up transformers. With a total installed capacity of

6,809 MW, Grand Coulee has enough spare
transformers (and generation, as it rarely runs
at full capacity) to weather a transformer failure. Courtesy: BIS Consulting
Economic end of life

Leveled life-cycle cost of a new
exciter
Annual risk of exciter

failure, increasing with age
0
10
20
Current age
30
40
50
60
Age of exciter
understanding the variables. The experts who

do that work typically use large databases,
failure probabilities (which often follow
bathtub curves where failure rates decrease,
level out, and then increase as equipment
ages), and then adjust the numbers based on
operations and maintenance history. Every
situation is unique, and many require a rigorous data-gathering process.
All 47-year-old stator windings are
not alike, said Johnson. Some have been
abused or just had bad luck, and some are
still in pretty good shape.
Upgrade? Not So Fast!

Many people jump to the conclusion that if
a unit is going to be offline for an extended
period of time, they should do every possible
upgrade or maintenance task that they can
think of to take advantage of the opportunity.
What many fail to take into account is that
cash is valuable. If the benefits of the work
are not realistically assessed and evaluated, a
lot of money can be wasted.
My working theory about why that happens is that, oftentimes, the decisions about
whats going to get done get made by engineers who face the downside of a failure,
Johnson said. They look bad if things fail,
but they dont really look all that good if they
save a little bit of money.
For example, if a project has a $50 million
budget and removing a job from the scope
saves $500,000, the work group may get a pat
on the back for being frugal. But, if the component later fails as a result of the decision,
the person who made the final ruling could
face heavy scrutiny.
I think where weve been able to help is
to get down on paper what would be the benefit of not doing something, Johnson said.
So its really a communication tool as much
as anything else.
April 2016 POWER
Aggregating information in a way that allows decision-makers to see, for example,

that there is a 4.3% chance that something
will fail next year, a 4.37% chance that it will
fail the following year, and escalating percentages thereafter, is very valuable (Figure
1). The consequences of a failure, such as one
month of lost energy production or collateral
damage to other equipment, must also be factored into the equation.
Johnson offered one example from a project he was involved in at the Grand Coulee
Dam (shown in the opening photo). His
group was brought in to evaluate the step-up
transformers (Figure 2) for a couple of the
older powerhouses. There were 18 units total.
He said the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation was
really worried about them failing.
Our estimate agreed with them, Johnson said. They actually were pretty likely to
fail, but because there were so many of them,
losing one really wasnt such a catastrophic
thing. The cost wasnt really all that high.
So, in our estimation, it was better at the time
to keep multiple spares on hand and tolerate
failure rather than spend a whole bunch of
money replacing all of the equipment.
Although the Bureau of Reclamation has
since decided to move forward with a more
extensive transformer replacement project at
Grand Coulee, the decision to delay the work
extended the total useful life of the equipment and saved money in the long run.
New Design Solves Gear Unit

Problems
In some cases, repeated failure makes the decision to upgrade an easy one. That was the
case for Dsseldorf, Germanybased Uniper. Its Hemsjo Nedre hydropower plant in
southern Sweden had experienced multiple
problems with an existing horizontal turbine
gear unit.
www.powermag.com
The original single-stage gear unit was

supplied in 1981 by ASEAa legacy brand
of Santasalo. It had been repaired several
times by third-party gearbox service companies, but it continued to be plagued by high
operating temperatures, and some cracks had
formed on internal components. That was
when Santasalo got involved.
We went onsite and checked the installation, said Henrik Cederberg, area sales manager for Santasalo. We made a whole new
calculation for this application.
After assessing the situation, three options were proposed to resolve the problems.
The first option was to repair the old ASEA
UAAF 170 unit by installing new internal
components, new bearings, and an upgraded
lubrication system. The second option was
to construct and install a new ASEA UAAF
unit, built in accordance with the old design
documentation. The third option was to create
a completely new design. This option would
allow a modern single-stage helical gear unit
to be installed, including a new lubrication
system and offline filter. Because it would
be built with the same dimensions as the old
ASEA unit, shaft positions, foundations, and
couplings would remain unchanged. Uniper
selected option three.
A lot of things have changed since ASEA
made the original unit for the client, Cederberg said.
He noted that the profile of modern gears
is better than it used to be. These days, gear
teeth are more accurately designed for the
expected or calculated load. Compensation
grinding ensures full tooth contact and helps
reduce noise. Materials are better understood,
and the hardening process is more precise.
Bearings have also improved, with new types
49

3. Smooth operator. After multiple failed repairs to Hemsjo Nedres original gear unit,
installing a new design made sense. Santasalo is confident that this one will last for 20 years or
more. Courtesy: Santasalo
4. Real-time performance monitoring. The REguard face seal with integrated PIMS
(pressurized interface management system), shown here, includes thermocouples (top left),
wear-down sensors (top center), and interface injection ports (top right). Courtesy: Wrtsil
Hydro & Industrial Services
and altered setups common in modern gear

units.
When you make a new gear unit, you
have a lot of things that are better than before, Cederberg said.
Engineering design technology may have
come a long way from the old-school days
of slide rules, but the need for good estimates
of operational parameters during the design
process hasnt changed.
50
When you perform the calculations for

the gear unit, it is really important to have the
correct information. We made all the calculations over again, using new information from
the customer, Cederberg added.
In the end, Santasalo delivered the custom-made unit within an 11-week window
to fit Unipers schedule. But the proof of the
pudding is in the eating. Since the new gear
unit (Figure 3) was installed, operating temwww.powermag.com
peratures and noise are substantially reduced,

and oil testing shows no signs of trouble.
Seal Upgrade Allows Real-Time

Condition Monitoring
Mechanical seal failure is another problem
that can force maintenance to be performed
sooner than expected. The technology used
in most seals is not new, but in the past it has
been hard to predict when wear components
in the seal were approaching their end of life.
Many companies rely on scheduled maintenance, based on operational runtimes, but
this could mean tearing into a seal that is still
in satisfactory condition, just because the calendar suggests that its time is up.
However, Finland-based Wrtsil has come
up with a new solution that may eliminate the
guesswork. The companys REguard waterlubricated face-type seal with integrated PIMS
(pressurized interface management system)
offers some unique features designed to allow
real-time monitoring (Figure 4). The system
will be used on two horizontal turbine runners
in the Allen E. Inman powerhouse at the Bureau
of Reclamations Minidoka Dam on the Snake
River in south-central Idaho. GE Renewable
Energy is responsible for that project.
The system was originally developed almost 30 years ago, Ronnie Oliver, project
engineer for Wrtsil Hydro & Industrial Services, told POWER. It injects water into the
sealing interface, which provides lubrication
and a means of maintaining a positive pressure, so that silt and debris dont get into the
interface and wear it down quickly.
In itself, that is not so unique; what is distinctive is that the latest version incorporates
a large number of sensors, which glean information about seal operation and performance.
With the information, predictive analysis
can be performed in real time, telling owners how long replaceable components can be
expected to last. In addition, if some type of
anomaly or extenuating operating condition
occurs, the effect on the seal can be determined immediately. That could help maintenance teams prepare for a future repair.
There are systems around that are far
more simplistic, and basically hydraulic, but
to the best of my knowledge, we are the only
company that has the technology that is sent
digitally, said Les Creak, general manager
of the Hydro & Industrial Services segment
for Wrtsil.
A water filtration system can also be added to help extend seal service life. Wrtsil
tailors each design to meet the requirements
of the facility. The filtration system is particularly important in heavy-silt, heavy-quartz
waters. Creak suggested that the combined
solution could significantly extend maintenance cycles.
POWER April 2016

5. Training for success. Using a combination of classroom and hands-on sessions,
American Governors instructors teach the finer points of governor operation and maintenance.
Courtesy: American Governor
6. Havent been there or done that. Working on stator windings is not something
the average maintenance technician does every day. Courtesy: Voith Hydro
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If you can move from three- to five-year

cycles, all the way out to 10 years, then you
are cutting costs and obviously optimizing
the uptime in terms of power generation,
Creak said.
Staying on Top of Things

Complacency, or in some cases even neglect, can allow small problems to become
large. Matt Roberts, engineering and operations manager for American Governor,
told POWER that most original equipment
April 2016 POWER
is built to high standards and designed for

very long life. He said due to the nature of
how hydropower governors are designed,
they can continue to function satisfactorily,
even when not properly maintained.
I dont know how many times weve
walked into a plant and the governor, short of
being dusted off, barely gets touched, Roberts said. So one of the biggest challenges
we have is just general awareness. A lot of
times we dont get called in until the governors are in incredibly poor shape.
www.powermag.com
Discover our
solutions for the
power plant industry
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51

7. Fine tuning. Getting a Francis runner ready for installation requires a lot of skill and attention to detail. Voith has been doing that type of work for a long time. Courtesy: Voith Hydro
practice, using exercises, case studies, simulations, and visits to factories and laboratories.
The company also stresses the importance
of reading the operations and maintenance
manuals and following the original equipment manufacturers recommendations.
Changing with the Times
Roberts added that, although mechanical

governors can provide excellent frequency
control when properly maintained, in many
cases the importance of the governor isnt
well understood by the utilities themselves.
Without adequate training for plant staff,
maintenance will suffer, eventually resulting
in governor problems, such as difficulty synchronizing, hunting, and excessive governor
oil pump runtime.
One of the leading reasons we see companies upgrade to digital governors is simply
a lack of in-house understanding of how to
support their original equipment, Roberts
said.
However, mechanics can be taught how to
perform all types of governor maintenance
tasks, including major overhauls. American
Governor offers such training at its facility
in Amherst, Wis. Governor schools and focus
classes include a combination of classroom
and hands-on sessions (Figure 5) to give
technicians the knowledge and skills that
they need. American Governor also offers
onsite training, covering plant-specific governor equipment.
Roberts suggested that all plants should
have a governor training strategy and a
preventive maintenance plan. With proper
training, in-house staff can usually complete routine maintenance jobs without any
trouble.
Big Jobs Could Require Help

When it comes time for major work, such
as a five-year overhaul, some facilities have
the staff to do the job, but others may want
to hire a contractor. For example, American
52
Governor has teams that do less-routine

work regularly. For them, showing up onsite
with a full parts kit, doing a top-to-bottom
governor disassembly and inspection, replacing worn components along the way,
and recalibrating the reassembled governor
is just another day on the job. That is most
likely not the case for in-house workers,
who might only do such work a few times
during their entire career.
Frequent technology changes and the loss
of know-howas experienced engineers
and technicians reach retirement agealso
calls for action. Rodney Orwick, president of
Voith Hydros HyService division, suggested
that the loss of experienced employees is one
of the biggest challenges facing owners. He
said that many times when the Voith HyService team is called to disassemble a unit,
plant personnel tell them that no one working at the facility has ever seen the machine
disassembled (Figure 6). Frequently, the staff
doesnt know the process, and often they
dont know where the original equipment
handling fixtures are located, or if they even
exist.
Voith claims to have installed a quarter of
the worlds 40,000 hydropower units (Figure 7), which it feels is a big advantage. The
company says that having the experience
and the original drawingsgives it a leg up
on the competition. But if a company wants
to go it alone, Voith can help them prepare.
Voith offers training programs tailored to
fit customer needs too. The company has expert instructors with solid experience that are
available worldwide. Orwick said the companys methodology alternates theory and
www.powermag.com
Orwick said that modernization programs

could be driven by a wide variety of factors,
including relicensing requirements, changes
in plant usage, environmental mitigation efforts, a desire to increase capacity, and reliability or availability concerns. While each
owner has its own threshold for pursuing
upgrades, he said most are driven by costto-benefit ratios, that is, either reducing the
cost of operation or increasing the benefits of
generation.
We have historically found that the allin costs and payback periods of hydro modernization and life extension are quite often
competitive with other options for owners to
add capacity/energy, such as gas-fired generation, Orwick said.
Both Orwick and Roberts pointed to
functionality as another driving factor for
upgrades. Roberts said there are just certain
things that are quite a bit harder to do with
a mechanical governor than with a digital
system.
Mechanical governors cant really be reprogrammed, Roberts said. With a digital
governor, its a blank slate. You can do anything. You can have remote operation. You
can have diagnostics. You can send alarms
back and say this specific thing failed. You
can change the operation.
And while Roberts admitted that obsolescence used to be a significant problem for
digital governors, he said that is not really
the case anymore.
One of the biggest advances in governor
technology over the last 10 to 20 years has
not been in functionality but in the type of
equipment thats been used, said Roberts.
In the old black box days of digital
governors, if a chip failed, the entire system
might have required replacement. But now,
American Governor uses all off-the-shelf,
nonproprietary components in its digital systems. If something fails, any local industrial
electrical supplier is likely to carry the replacement part that is needed.
Youre seeing equipment lifecycles of
30 to 40 years already, with commitments
from the manufacturers to support them for
another 20 years, Roberts said. So youre
starting to see obsolescence periods that are
getting closer to what the mechanical governors were.
Aaron Larson is a POWER associate

editor.
POWER April 2016
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New Plant Design Options Expand

Geothermal Power Operations
Courtesy: Enel Green Power North America Inc.
Geothermal energy may not be a large contributor to the U.S. power mixit provided less than 0.5% of total U.S. generation in 2015but it is a reliable and dispatchable renewable energy source that plays well with others. And while the concept is
old, new technology is making it easier for grid operators to utilize this important
resource.
Allie Nelson
eothermal technology, though over a

century old, is constantly changing.
Developments in mapping techniques
have improved exploratory practices. Plant
adaptations, such as hybrid technologies
and the introduction of fully flexible mode,
have enhanced operations. And cutting-edge
research continues around the globe, with
goals of improving plant efficiency and performance. With geothermal technology
arguably more so than with other generating
technologiesplant design determines ones
operating options, so we begin with some of
the latest plant design innovations.
Geothermal Reservoir Discovery

To establish a plant, first a company must
find a suitable heat source. A core area of
geothermal interest is risk reduction, because
drilling is chancy. One effort to develop a
reliable science-based exploration and assessment method for identifying geothermal
reservoirs is the Integrated Methods for Advanced Geothermal Exploration (IMAGE)
project. Funded by the European Union, the
project is redefining geothermal exploration,
making the drilling process more precise.
54
With an advanced methodology, IMAGE

partners are increasing the likelihood that a
geothermal reservoir is discovered during the
exploratory phase.
Geothermal surveys currently combine
several approaches to find areas with high
geothermal potential, similar to oil and gas
exploration. IMAGE researchers in several
European regions are using a mixture of novel
survey techniques to accomplish their goals,
including geophysical techniques such as
ambient seismic noise correlation and magnetotellurics with improved noise filtering;
fiber-optic down-hole logging tools to assess
subsurface structure, temperature, and physical rock properties; and the development of
new tracers and geothermometers.
Overall, IMAGE is refining the prediction
process through studying reservoir factors
like fracture permeability, temperature, and
in situ stresses. Once field and laboratory
data is fully analyzed and incorporated, it
will be used to enhance current geothermal
exploration techniques. IMAGE is just one
of many studies under way that are revolutionizing the exploratory process involved in
geothermal plant creation.
www.powermag.com
Maximizing the Value of Thermal

Energy
Mike Long, senior project manager for the
Strategic Consulting department at POWER
Engineersa consulting services and engineering firm headquartered in Idaho
confirmed that technological innovations in
geothermal plant exploration and operations
are changing the industry. His firm has noticed multiple institutional efforts being
made to improve the success rate in identifying new areas of significant geothermal potential and exploratory activities to mitigate
resource development uncertainty and cost.
According to Long, The success of these efforts on the resource side drives new power
plant projects.
Longs firm has seen a focus on better
overall use of geofluid energy, resulting in
more efficient plants. In the past, a more
conservative approach was taken to install
single-pressure steam-condensing plants. We
are now starting to see combinations of double- and triple-pressure steam-condensing
plants with bottoming cycle binary plants,
Long said (see sidebar Triple-Steam Cycle
Provides Power and Heat in Turkey).
POWER April 2016
Triple-Steam Cycle
Provides Power and Heat
in Turkey
The Kizlidere project in western Turkey is a good example of innovative
technology, explained Mike Long,
senior project manager for the Strategic Consulting department at POWER
Engineers. Due to unique geothermal
resource conditions, this plant is using a triple-steam-pressure cycle. The
high-pressure steam flows to a highpressure backpressure turbine, which
exhausts to a binary cycle (organic
Rankine cycle) plant. The intermediate- and low-pressure steam flow to
a separate condensing turbine. The
overall cycle improves the cycle efficiency while addressing some unique
resource conditions. The project is
also equipped with capabilities for
district heating.
The Kizlidere Geothermal Reservoir is
a classic example of a high-potential
geothermal field, the first of such to
be explored in Turkey for power production. The geothermal fluid the reservoir
contains allows scaling to happen quite
rapidly, and the initial reservoir harbors
temperatures as high as 260C. These
specialized, high-potential geothermal
fields, with temperatures above 90C, are
found near quaternary volcanoes and
underground intrusive bodies, making
them ideal areas for geothermal plant
development, due to their large energy
potential.
Flash technologies are employed when the
steam that powers geothermal plant turbines
carries excessive hot water. A single-flash
cycle separates the steam and water before
feeding steam into the turbine. In doubleflash systems, the hot water pressure is decreased using a pressure regulator, allowing
more steam to be produced and raising generation capacity. A third technology, the triple-flash cycle, lowers the hot water pressure
following steam separation by double flash in
order to separate the steam, though it is less
commonly used. Equipment for triple flash is
the most complicated, perhaps contributing
to its rarity.
According to Long, these combined technologies highlight a shift to better extraction
of thermal energy, increasing the amount of
generated power. In addition, binary plant
technology has seen improvements in its
overall thermodynamic cycles, including the

optimization of working fluid composition to
better match the temperature conditions.
Another innovative project Long highlighted was the U.S. Department of Energys
Frontier Observatory for Research in Geothermal Energy (FORGE). This is an early
stage program to select a U.S.-based site to
develop a center for improving both exploration and utilization of geothermal energy,
including expanding the technology of enhanced geothermal systems (EGS), Long
said. According to Long, EGS is a promising new area in geothermal research where a
high-temperature geologic area cannot support a commercial facility in its natural state
due to a lack of fluid or permeability. The
FORGE program will focus on techniques to
improve existing geological characteristics to
allow for the injection of fluid into the hot
zones.
As POWER reported in U.S. EGS Project
Adds 1.7 MW Grid-Connected Output, the
first grid-connected EGS project went online
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55

1. Puna Geothermal Venture (PGV). Located in the Puna district on the Big Island in
Hawaii, PGV is the only geothermal power plant in the state. Courtesy: Ormat Technologies Inc.
2. Automatic generator control (AGC) offers flexibility. Using AGC, 16 MW

of PGVs 38-MW capacity can be dispatched by system operators to match demand. Courtesy:
Ormat Technologies Inc.
in April 2013. EGS creates an engineered heat

exchanger that involves enhancing the permeability of deep hot rock by hydrothermal
fracturing, high-rate water injection, and/or
chemical dissolution of minerals by drilling
production wells to depths of 10,000 feet and
beyond where temperatures reach upwards
of 350F. A cold working fluidwater, typicallyis then allowed to flow through the
deep openings in the rock to further crack it
and to mine its heat energy. When the water
is pumped back to the surface, the resulting
steam is used to power a turbine to generate
power. The water is cooled again into a liquid
and injected back into the ground to repeat
56
the cycle in a closed-loop system.
Designing for Optimal Operation

One innovative plant that won a 2015 Geothermal Energy Association (GEA) Honors
Award was Enel Green Power North America
Inc.s (EGP-NAs) Stillwater Solar Geothermal Hybrid Project (shown in the opening
photo, and a 2012 POWER Renewable Top
Plant winner). Located in Churchill County,
Nev., Enels plant integrates the continuous
generation capacity of binary-cycle, medium-enthalpy geothermal power with solar
photovoltaic (PV) and solar thermal units.
The components all work in tandem in a nevwww.powermag.com
Geothermal and California: Mutually Supportive

When it comes to geothermal energy
policies, no state is as supportive as California. California has the most installed
geothermal capacity of any state in the
U.S. by farmore than 80% of the total.
As a dispatchable resource, geothermal
plays a valuable role in the states renewable energy mix.
Although the bulk of the geothermal
capacity is installed in Northern California, Southern California holds significant
potential. The Geothermal Energy Association and the Imperial Irrigation District estimate that the Salton Sea region
of California contains between 1,500 MW
and 2,900 MW of geothermal potential,
which, if fully harnessed, could revitalize a drying, saline lake that is a hotspot
for tourists and water birds. Dust storms
plague the area due to inhospitable vegetation conditions, but geothermal plants
could help stabilize the desert sand, potentially mitigating the storms. In addition, the geothermal industry would
provide an economic boost to the lagging
local economy, creating employment and
adding capital from new sources.
Brine generated from Salton Sea geothermal plants would also be high in
lithium, whose rising market value could
make plants a mineral gold mine if extraction technologies improve in coming
years (see Mining for Lithium in Geothermal Brine: Promising but Pricey in
the March 2015 issue).
er-before-seen mix. Enels advanced technology produced a generation profile consistent
with the demand for electricity while meeting strict environmental performance standards without consuming water or releasing
air emissions during normal operations.
When EGP-NA added a 26.4-MW solar
PV unit to the geothermal plant in 2012, it
was one of the largest PV systems of its kind
in the U.S. Integration of the solar system has
helped to maximize plant capacity and improve reliability.
Used in tandem, the two technologies
complement each others strengths, making
up for any gaps in productivity. For example,
when thermal efficiency in the geothermal
unit is lowestduring the hottest and sunniest times of the day or yearsolar PV is at its
most productive, stabilizing production and
enabling a more consistent energy produc-
POWER April 2016
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Surface prep & painting

Industrial painting
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Floor coating systems
Lead abatement
Offsite blasting & coating

3. Injecting new life. Two wastewater injection projects have ensured the continued effective operation at The Geysers in Northern California, the worlds largest geothermal field.
Courtesy: Calpine Corp.
of the geothermal resource became the first

challenge for the design. The requirement is
to quickly turn down generation and quickly
turn up generation within reasonable ranges.
The solution Ormat settled on was to maintain geothermal fluid flows from the wellfield at relatively steady rates and find ways
to provide bypass for fluid or heat around the
generation equipment as needed, governed
by the power demand from the AGC.
Life-Extension Operation
tion profile.
In addition, the company developed a
2-MW (17-MW thermal) concentrating solar
power system in 2015 to operate alongside
the existing Stillwater geothermal power station. Using a 22-row parabolic trough system, which concentrates the suns energy by
75 times, the thermodynamic plant adds energy to increase the temperature of geothermal fluid entering the plant and increases the
amount of electricity that it can produce.
Flexible Control of Geothermal

Resources
In terms of plant operations, much progress has
been made since geothermal energy was first
harnessed in 1904. One recent breakthrough
is the ability for geothermal plants to operate
in fully flexible mode, which means they can
produce electricity at varying levels, according
to grid demands. This operating mode gives
flexible control to power utilities, in contrast
to the always-on baseload power traditionally
provided by geothermal plants.
GEA member Ormat Technologies Inc.
first accomplished this operating mode dur58
ing 2011 in Hawaii. Since then, fully flexible

operational capability has become the single
most important quality of a geothermal generator on grids with large amounts of variable
renewables.
The site of Ormats innovation, the Puna
Geothermal Venture (PGV) power plant
(Figures 1 and 2), won a GEA 2015 Honors
Award. Puna has a capacity of 38 MW, but
Hawaii Electric Light Co. can operate up to
16 MW of PGVs output on automatic generation control (AGC). AGC allows remote
control operation via communication between the Puna facility and the Hawaii Electric Light Co.s system to allow automatic
adjustments to plant generation in order to
match grid demand in coordination with other facilities, including large volumes of variable renewable generation. Ormat explains
that The communication also allows the
plant SCADA system to update the system
operator on available capacity and spinning
reserves.
According to Ormat, This requirement
of quick response to changes in power generation while maintaining stable operation
www.powermag.com
Geothermal power uses a renewable, baseload resource, but that resource can be subject to lower capacity and efficiency over
time. The Geysers in Northern California,
which encompasses about 30 square miles,
is one example. (See the sidebar Geothermal and California: Mutually Supportive
for details on geothermals potential in
Southern California.) The first power produced by the areas geothermal wells was
generated in 1921.
As the plants current operator, Calpine
Corp., explains, Throughout the 1970s and
1980s, vastly more steam was produced from
The Geysers reservoir than was replaced by
the injection of power plant steam condensate. By 1989, accelerated development had
caused severe steam pressure decreases in the
reservoir, resulting in lower steam production
rates. This decline threatened the future sustainability of Geysers power generation.
To enable future operation of the facility, in 1990, The Geysers, in collaboration
with Lake County and the California Energy
Commission, developed the 29-mile Southeast Geysers Effluent Pipeline (subsequently
lengthened to 40 miles) to deliver roughly 9
million gallons per day of treated wastewater
to the Geysers (Figure 3).
Calpine explains that the success of the
initial recharging project in maintaining reservoir pressure provided momentum for a
similar project to bring tertiary treated effluent from the Santa Rosa area to The Geysers. In 2003, the City of Santa Rosa and
Calpine partnered to construct a 42-mile
pipeline that became known at the Santa
Rosa Geysers Recharge Project (SRGRP).
Since 2003, SRGRP has delivered approximately 11 million gallons per day of tertiary
treated wastewater to replenish The Geysers geothermal reservoir.
Injection of this wastewater from area
communities has improved the sustainability
of the Geysers geothermal area while simultaneously reducing the need to discharge the
wastewater into local surface waters.
Allie Nelson is a geothermal news and

communications specialist for the Geothermal Energy Association. POWER staff
contributed to this article.
POWER April 2016
POWER & ENERGY

Conference & Exhibition
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June 26-30, 2016
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Risk Management: Using

Resilience Engineering to Develop
a More Reliable Workforce, Part 2
Courtesy: Calpine
Developing a resilient organization pays benefits daily, but during outages and other
maintenance tasks, it can account for the difference between success and failure.
Beth Lay
n the January issue, I introduced the

concepts of highly reliable organizing
(HRO) and resilience engineering with a
promise to address the remaining principles.
As a quick review of the first article, youll
recall that many quality and safety systems
are designed around simple work, such as on
assembly lines. However, processes aimed
solely at minimizing variability are ineffective for the complex, highly variable work of
operating and maintaining power plants.
HRO, as described in the book Managing
the Unexpected, focuses on reducing failures
through:
Preoccupation with failure

Reluctance to simplify
Sensitivity to operations
Commitment to resilience
Deference to expertise
Erik Hollnagel, one of the fathers of resilience engineering, defines resilience as the
intrinsic ability of a system to adjust its functioning prior to, during, or following events
(changes, disturbances, and opportunities),
60
and sustain required operations under both

expected and unexpected conditions.
A resilient system must be able to respond,
monitor, anticipate, and learn. Its not resilient if it lacks any of these abilitieseven if
it excels at some of them.
The first article covered the first two principles below; this article addresses the remaining three. To engineer resilient systems, we
design according to these principles:
Principle 1: Variability and uncertainty are

inherent in complex work.
Principle 2: Expert operators are sources
of reliability.
Principle 3: A system view is necessary to
understand and manage complex work.
Principle 4: It is necessary to understand
normal work.
Principle 5: Focus on what we wantto
create safety.
The opposite of resilient is brittle.

Think about how a brittle material fails:
Load increases and increases until, snap,
it breaks. You have little to no warning. Hidwww.powermag.com
den flaws contribute to sudden and unexpected failures.

Resilience is like a ductile material: Load
increases until the metal begins to deform,
at which point you remove the load and it
returns to normal shape. Youve just been
warned that you are reaching the yield point;
beyond the yield point, permanent deformation begins to occur, but you still have time to
recover before failure.
Power plant operations, including outages, are socio-technical systems composed
of people plus technology and equipment.
We tend to focus on the equipment, jumping
into disassembly, repair and replace, and reassembly. Yet, the other component, people,
makes or breaks system resilience.
We all have limited capacity, and when
we get stressed, we begin to miss and forget
things. During an outage, if several significant events occur, things can begin to fail,
like a snowball rolling downhill, growing and
gathering speed. The more stressed people
are, the more things go wrong. Weve all seen
outages like this.
To build resilience, we notice and moni-
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PARTS | SERVICES | REPAIRS

Preparing for a Heavy Spring Outage Season

We were headed into one of our toughest
spring outage seasons when we decided to
apply a system view, through a Brittleness
Assessment / Resilience Design workshop.
Resilience engineering was a new concept
to this group, so we began with the basics of what brittle and resilient looked like
along with a little bit of systems science. In
addition to Calpine, Ive held similar workshops with an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) field service group.
First, establish a common understanding
between planning and all resource groups
(people, tools, and parts) of the situation
and plans.
Second, create a system view (typically, on a whiteboard) that shows outages
and resources (people, tools, parts) along
with constraints and interdependencies
(Figure 1).
Third, probe the following:
What have we assumed (especially in planning)? We found that different groups

had different assumptions about load.
We found assumptions that all outages
would complete on time even though a
significant percentage of outages historically ran long.
Which outages are double-constrained
(with hard start and end dates)? We
found four double-constrained outages:
hard start and finish dates; constraints
caused by turning parts from one unit,
and repairing them, to go into another
unit; or regulator constraints to finish
outages at one plant before bringing the
other down.
Which outages are tightly coupled or interdependent? Tight coupling means effects
spread quickly, leaving limited slack or buffer. We found cases of no buffer for outages
running long; people and parts were timed
tor yield points to give us a chance to adapt

and reconfigure so we can handle additional
load without failing. Different conditions can
bring us close to a yield point, such as a certain level of deployment (for example, 85%
deployed is sustainable, but more than that
may not be); three or more significant issues
on a project; piling up stressors such as foul
weather, a holiday, and change-out of people;
or novel or complex work.
There are signs that indicate we are approaching a yield point. One is that people
62
1. Get a system view. Whiteboards can help to develop a system view of an outage before developing a formal plan. Courtesy: Calpine
to arrive and depart just in time.

Which outage, if it ran long, would be
most disruptive and cause the most ripple
effects? We identified one outage that
was clearly the most complex and with
the highest resource requirements.
Where are potential single-point failures
(such as key people or critical tools for
which there is no backup)? We found turn
times for critical tools for which there
was no backup, yet work was expected
to go perfectly each time.
Who is most likely to become stretched to
the point that they cant keep up?
What dont we know yet? Identify and
bound uncertainties.
The first time you hold such a workshop,

all that may come out of it is the ability
to notice brittleness. This is not a panacea,
but its a first step toward becoming more
resilient. We can safely say we went into this
begin acting differently. We can look for
signs that the mood or situation has changed:
progress stalls, schedule slips, people dont
return calls or emails, or people are irritable.
What signs have you noticed when approaching a yield point? Who is in a good
position to monitor for change? Sometimes
when youre sick, its hard to decide when to
call the doctor. Similarly, people off site may
be in a better position to notice changes at a
big picture level while people on site are immersed in regaining control.
www.powermag.com
outage season better prepared. Early on, one

outage with a hard end date ran into a significant problem, which led to outage extension with significant downstream impacts.
The outage season was toughdespite the
workshop. Such are the challenges in a resource-constrained environment.
At the OEM site, actions taken after a
Brittleness Assessment / Resilience Design
workshop included negotiating 24/7 engineering support; creating a special team to
stay in close touch with outages, monitor
risk level, and remove obstacles; and bringing in a highly experienced retiree to support
a team that was stretched the thinnest.
Weve tended to hold these workshops
lateroughly a month prior to outage seasonwhich limited our ability to respond.
Ideally, workshops should be held several
months prior to outage season to allow time
to plan for, design, and implement strategies
and tactics to increase resilience.
Principle 3: A System View Is

Necessary
A system view of work simply means stepping back and looking at the big picture from
a level that makes sensea power plant, a
fleet of power plants, or a set of outages
considering that components within a complex system have interdependencies. We have
a natural tendency to attempt to simplify systems, focusing on individual components (X is
broken, fix it!). This can cause us to miss the
more nuanced influences related to system in-
POWER April 2016

terdependencies. This is why highly reliable organizations are reluctant
to simplify. Oversimplification can lead to a static instead of dynamic
view. In our highly variable world, it is important to see and understand
changes as they happen. A system view looks not only at trends but also
at speed and rate of change (velocity and acceleration).
Assessing System Brittleness. David Woods, a founder of resilience engineering, said, Ability to deal with crisis is largely dependent on what was prepared before the surprise arrives. What is
not prepared becomes a complex problem and every weakness comes
rushing to the forefront. In complex systems, many interdependencies are hidden and are only revealed in a crisis, accelerating degradation of the system. A big part of being prepared is uncovering and
being prepared for these interdependencies.
Drawing System Boundaries at the Power Plant Level. Taking the plant as a system boundary, we look for relationships between
units. Weve noticed a pattern with some plant trips: Just as we get one
component under control, issues emerge with another component. In
one case, on a combined cycle unit, the steam turbine tripped after
losing feed to a bus. Just as we got the steam turbine under control,
we were surprised by one of the gas turbines having a slight overspeed
excursion and tripping. It turned out we lacked a tiebreaker scheme
to transfer power supply between the cooling fans of each unit, so we
lost power to vent fans, and then the compartment overheated, causing a gas control valve processor to fail.
If we uncover and address interdependencies before emergencies, we loosen coupling to give ourselves more time to respond. At
Calpine, we are just beginning to think about how to apply thishow
to look for linkages between units or unexpected connections between
components in the physical, electrical, and/or control systems. At one
plant, we will use simulations to improve emergency response and
help find interdependencies.

Drawing System Boundaries at the Fleet Level. Outage work
during spring and fall peaks requires continuous adaptation. Emerging scope is common, and resources are always constrained. This results in a system that can quickly become brittle and produce more
breakdowns as resources are tapped and fatigue grows. We have a
tendency to focus on outages with the most urgent issues, but this
misses interdependencies and indirect costs associated with cascading changes.
For example, when people are moved to different outages, as the
result of changes in plans or in the middle of an outage, risk is introduced and there can be losses due to ripple effects. These losses and
risks are mostly hidden but can be uncovered and addressed with a
holistic systems view (see sidebar).
Designing for Resilience: Margins of Maneuver. Being resilient means having the ability to stretch near boundaries, such as when
surprise occurs or were overloaded to the point that we are close to or
beyond our limits. This is sometimes called graceful extensibility.
Margins of maneuver are the cushion of potential actions and additional resources that allow us to continue to operate and enable us
to maintain or regain control. You can think of margins of maneuver
as wiggle room. Margin can be in the form of extra resources such as
people, tools, time, or parts. Margin can be in the form of having multiple paths of actiona way out. Here are two strategies for building
margins of maneuver:
Share resources. Think of rotational programs that support development of peoples ability to hold multiple roles. Develop joint
strategies between groups to define which skill sets to recruit and
develop, such as staffing support groups with former frontline personnel who can temporarily be deployed. Add a person with general skills to difficult projects to unload project leadership. Share
people between plants to support outages.
Shed load. During peak load, people with critical skills do only
work that requires those skills. They shed more general work to
others. Postpone what can be done later (such as paperwork).
Margins of maneuver can show up as excess capacity when not in

use. Yet, when we consider how quickly money can be made and lost
with a plant down, the real value of this capacity is clear. Consider
this shift from the perspective of using different language: margins of
maneuver as contrasted with fat in schedule. This different framing
opens opportunity for surfacing and actively managing the extra time
in schedules that represents uncertainties, as compared to hiding uncertainty by artificially increasing the duration of scheduled activities.
Principle 4: Understand Normal Work

Principle 4, It is necessary to understand normal work, and Principle
5, Focus on what we want to createsafety, come from Hollnagel,
who notes the disconnect of assessing how good we are at safety by
measuring the absence of safety. Both good and bad outcomes result
from the variability present in normal work, yet normal work goes
well 99% of the time, mostly due to improvisations and adaptations
of expert operators. Does improvise, adapt, and overcome ring a
bell?
Heres a lesson from aviation to clarify the principle of understanding normal work. When an aircraft is on final approach, margins are
narrow and the aircraft is in a critical stage of flight, with few options
for recovery. A project led by Maria Lundahl of LFV Air Navigations
Services of Sweden, aimed at reducing runway incursions (the collision of aircraft that are landing or taking off with ground equipment,
other aircraft, or people), studied normal work as follows.
First, experts (pilots observing pilots, air traffic controllers observCIRCLE 33 ON READER SERVICE CARD
64
www.powermag.com
POWER April 2016

ing air traffic controllers [ATCs], and cart
drivers observing other cart drivers) observed
normal work, looking for why there were no
runway incursions most of the time. Then, in
workshops with pilots, ATCs, and cart drivers, they:
Asked participants to think about normal

work (what they do well) and share examples of when they were in a situation
where a runway incursion could have occurred but didnt. Why didnt it?
Brought in real cases of runway incursions
and told the story, right up to just before
the incident, and then asked, What do
you do to avoid a runway incursion in this
case?
Had people shadow or talk with those
in other roles to shift perspectives and
improve cooperation: pilots and drivers
go into the ATC tower. ATCs go on carts
around the airport, even during snow
removal. All had good ideas for other
roles, and it developed a deeper understanding that improved coordination and
cooperation.
Vetted good practices that came up
throughout the project with expert drivers,
pilots, and ATCs.
Although this was a large-scale study, the

same concepts apply at a plant level. Think
about a situation where we almost trip the
plant but recover. What are other low-margin
situations where we create safety through
normal work?
Real Time Risk Assessment. With almost

90 power plants, we have deep knowledge
and much experience to bring to bear on
problems. You likely have a similar situation,
but how do you locate knowledge and experience, quickly, at the point and time of need?
The thing about knowledge is that its always
evolving. We could database it, but as soon as
we did, the database would be out of date.
In a Real Time Risk Assessment, a novel
and/or difficult situation comes up and, within an hour, a geographically separated group
of people, diverse in terms of knowledge and
function, convene via conference call to solve
the problem.
It works like this. Plant leadership contacts the knowledge broker/facilitator. In
our case, its the safety team. The safety
team bridges organizational boundaries,
and members have been trained to facilitate
this process. The knowledge broker sends a
request for help to matchmakers (people
who know what others know) who have
wide networks and deep or broad work with
plant leadership to determine who to invite,
filling these roles: risk decision owner, challenger, subject matter experts, and peers
with similar experiences.
There are typically 10 to 15 people on the
call. The knowledge broker leads the call,
translating the conversation into the language of risk, actively probing and bounding risks and uncertainty. On the call, we
describe and diagnose the risk situation via
structured brainstorming designed around
questions that surface risks. Then we agree
Margins of maneuver can show up as excess

capacity when not in use. Yet, when we consider how quickly money can be made and
lost with a plant down, the real value of
this capacity is clear.
Principle 5: Focus on What We

Want to CreateSafety
Applying each of the first four principles is
how we enable success in applying the fifth
one, which focuses on the ultimate goalthe
creation of a safe work environment.
Using a Real Time Risk Assessment to
Create Safety. Heres a practice that helps
Calpine manage the emergent situations that

are common with complex work. Its called
April 2016 POWER
on and produce a plan of action that includes

any decisions to be made, monitoring, and
hold points.
An After Action Review is held once the
work is complete. Lessons are shared with
risk assessment participants, deepening the
circle of knowledge.
To implement this on a smaller scale,
consider engaging peers from user groups,
trusted external partners, similar noncompetwww.powermag.com
POWER POINTS
Resilience Engineering for

Plant Outages
Focus on the system (plant or
fleet level) instead of individual
parts to manage complexity and
interdependencies.
Ask probing questions well
before an outage begins.
Pay attention to yield points
and adjust before people and
processes break.
Build in margins of maneuver
wiggle room.
ing generators, vendors, and OEMs to fill the

roles.
A Real-World Example. We held a Real
Time Risk Assessment prior to temporarily
repairing a hot reheat bypass line weld crack.
It came up, during the risk assessment, that
the repair vendor hadnt realized how much
the plant was cycling. The vendor went back
and reinforced the strong back. Aha moments are common during these risk assessments. Additionally, a plant manager and
lead mechanic from another plant, where a
similar repair had gone awry, shared their experiences and tips.
The repair went well but ran a little long,
and we ran into issues with Amazon having
reserved all cargo space on planes just prior
to Christmas. These lessons, and others,
were rolled back out to risk assessment participants, increasing the odds that the next
time we do this type of repair or emergent
work near the holidays, well be even better
prepared.
Beginning the Journey

Resilience engineering is a shift in perspectiveshifting focus to the future and to
systemsand focuses on how people really
work, rather than on the idealized version
of work. The practices in this article support making this shift. Theres no need for
grand announcements. You can use the basic
principles described in this article to guide
decisions and design. We develop resilience
through small changes, small experiments,
and new questions with consistent, continuous focus on learning. To paraphrase Urban
Meyer in Above the Line, the day we stop
learning, we are falling behind.
Beth Lay (Beth.Lay@Calpine.com) is

director human performance at
Calpine Corp.
65
Communication Was Essential

to Alliant Energys Successful
Handling of Emissions Monitoring
When Prairie Creek Generating Station experienced a change in the one-hour
SO2 standard, plus a change in monitor location, it faced the possibility
that plant operationand steam customersmight experience negative
consequences. Sensible solutions avoided these problemsas well as
negative regional impacts.
Jeffrey Hanson, PE
he U.S. Environmental Protection

Agency (EPA) is obligated to review
many different federal environmental
standards on a recurring basis and update
them if the agency deems it necessary for
the protection of public health and welfare.
As standards change, existing facilities operating in a consistent fashion for years may
suddenly be faced with the challenge of an
updated and more-stringent regulatory requirement that must be addressed.
One approach to addressing such a situation may be to defer attention to it until it is
brought up during the review of a renewable
permit or when requirements are imposed by
a regulatory authority, potentially through
a State Implementation Plan. Another approach is to be proactive and address the
challenge head on.
Communication with regulators, local officials, customers, the general public, and
other stakeholders can be a much more effective and productive approach to a difficult
situation such as this. Alliant Energy takes
a proactive approach in these types of situations. We have found that a successful strategy is to maintain positive and collaborative
relationships with regulators while keeping
communication open with local officials,
customers, and the public. A good example is
the proactive actions taken by Alliant Energy
to address the recent challenge posed by the
sulfur dioxide (SO2) National Ambient Air
Quality Standards (NAAQS).
The Sulfur Dioxide Surprise

The original SO2 primary standards were established by the EPA in 1971 on a 24-hour
basis of 140 parts per billion (ppb) and 30
ppb on an annual basis. These standards
were reviewed in 1996, but they were left
unchanged.
66
In 2010, the EPA reviewed the SO2 standard again and chose to revise it by lowering
the acceptable concentration to 75 ppb on a
1-hour basis. The EPA revoked the two existing primary standards because they would
not provide additional public health protection given by a 1-hour standard at 75 ppb. As
a result, many facilities and localities, primarily those that use coal as a fuel source,
were faced with a more stringent air quality
standard that could result in additional restrictions brought about by a potential nonattainment area designation.
ommendation and designation of nonattainment is likely.

Alliant Energy is a Midwestern utility
that serves approximately 950,000 electric
and 410,000 natural gas customers in Iowa
and Wisconsin through its utilities Interstate
Power and Light and Wisconsin Power and
Light. Additionally, Alliant Energy provides
steam to industrial customers. Alliant Energy
utilizes coal in its generation portfolio, along
with natural gas and renewable assets. Alliant Energys Prairie Creek Generating Station (PCGS) in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, provides
As a result [of the new NAAQS], many

facilities and localities, primarily those
that use coal as a fuel source, were faced
with a more stringent air quality standard
that could result in additional restrictions
brought about by a potential nonattainment area designation.
With the 1-hour SO2 standard, the EPA
introduced two paths for states to make recommendations of attainment status: using
monitoring data or using ambient air quality
modeling. Traditionally, when monitoring
data is used, information is collected by monitoring stations for a three-year period. In the
case of the 1-hour SO2 standard, the fourthhighest daily maximum 1-hour concentration for each of the three years is averaged
together to calculate an SO2 concentration to
be compared against the standard of 75 ppb.
If that value is above the standard, then a recwww.powermag.com
electricity and steam through the use of coal

and natural gas. The plant is equipped with
four coal/natural gasfired boilers and two
natural gasfired boilers totaling approximately 250 MW.
The Matter of Parking a Monitor in

a Park
In 2012, the local air quality district office,
Linn County Public Health Department
(LCPHD), was faced with a decision regarding the relocation of SO2 ambient air monitoring equipment to a location that would
POWER April 2016
1. New monitor location. The red arrow shows the new location of the SO2 monitor in Cedar Rapids Tait Cummins Park. Prairie
Creek Generating Station can be seen in the foreground. Courtesy:
Map data 2016 Google
provide a better representation of SO2 concentrations in the area. The

Iowa Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) directed the LCPHD
to relocate an existing SO2 monitor that had been stationed near an
industrial park containing a coal-fired power plant that had been shuttered by the floods of 2008 to another location with potential SO2
emitting sources. LCPHD examined its air emissions inventory and
decided to locate the monitor near the facility that had reported the
highest annual SO2 emissions levels in recent years. That was Alliant
Energys Prairie Creek Generating Station.
LCPHD contacted Alliant Energy officials and discussed the possibility of locating the monitor near PCGS, noting that although the
plant had the highest reported annual SO2 emission levels in the
county, the area was also impacted by other SO2-emitting sources.
The precise location had yet to be decided. Although both Alliant
Energy and LCPHD had conducted ambient air quality modeling to
assess potential impact areas, both sets of analyses indicated that the
areas predicted to observe the highest concentrations of SO2 were in a
wooded area away from public congregation.
LCPHD, as a public health protection agency, assessed its options
and looked for an area to locate the monitor that might be more representative of where the public may be. That line of thought raised the
possibility of locating the monitor in Tait Cummins Park, adjacent to
PCGS (Figure 1).
SO2 is a fairly localized air pollutant not typically subject to longrange transport like ozone or fine particulates. According to Shane
Dodge, supervisor of the Air and Water Quality Branch for the
LCPHD, by locating the monitor in the park, LCPHD would be able
to assess local SO2 emission sources impact on an area where the
public congregates.
The recommendation to locate the monitor in Tait Cummins Park
was put before the IDNR and ultimately accepted. That location, because it wasnt the area with the highest predicted concentrations of
SO2, would not ultimately serve as an acceptable location to demonstrate attainment with the SO2 standard, but it would be responsive to
LCPHDs mission.
Locating a monitoring trailer in Tait Cummins Park presented
some interesting questions for the LCPHD and Alliant Energy to work
through. The park contains several baseball diamonds and a concession stand, which the monitoring trailer was intended to be located
2. Level indicator. Local agencies and Alliant Energy worked together to develop an informational flier about the new SO2 monitor and
what SO2 air quality levels mean. It included this graphic. Courtesy:
Linn County Public Health Department
near. It was anticipated that the presence of the trailer would generate
questions, not only from users of the park, but also from those who
work at PCGS, regarding its purpose, as well as what the information
it was collecting might be telling.
LCPHD and Alliant Energy worked with officials of the Linn
County Parks Department to develop a flier (Figure 2) that would
communicate the purpose of the monitor, how the SO2 standard was
changed, how to obtain information on the monitors readings, and
that there hadnt been any significant increases in SO2 emission sources in the area. (See the online version of this article at powermag.com
for a link to a pdf of the flier.) In addition, data that the monitor was
collecting was added to LCPHDs Air Quality Divisions webpage
(https://monitoring.linncleanair.org).
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67
3. Raising the threat of nonattainment. The red line indicates the 75 ppb threshold for SO2. This chart covers all of 2014. Monitoring in the new location began January 1, 2014,
and by the end of April, six days had exceeded the 75 ppb threshold. Courtesy: Alliant Energy
180
160
140
SO2 (ppb)
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
The flier also identified whom to contact

with questions and was distributed by the
Parks Department to recreation league officials and posted on the concession stand.
Dodge says that very few questions ended
up coming into his office as a result. Alliant
Energy provided similar information to its
employees, with similar results.
Modeling vs. Monitoring

The monitor began collecting data on January 1, 2014, and contrary to what the air quality models were predicting, it recorded four
daily high concentrations above the 75 ppb
standard in the first six weeks of operation.

By the end of April, six days had exceeded
the 75 ppb threshold. Though weather patterns and other matters may have influenced
the data in an unexpected way, the data that
was being recorded introduced the possibility
that the area could be found to be in nonattainment with the SO2 standard.
When monitoring data is utilized, attainment demonstrations with the 1-hour SO2
standard are based upon 99% of the values
recorded. This is done by air quality agencies
by examining the hourly SO2 data over the
course of a day and assigning the highest val-
ue for a given day that days value. Since the

standard is based upon the 99th percentile,
the highest three days are omitted from the
analysis, and the fourth-highest daily value
is then the value that is used for the year. An
area would be found to be out of attainment
with the standard if the three-year average of
these values is over 75 ppb.
By the end of 2014, the monitor had recorded 13 daily readings that were above
the 1-hour standard, with the fourth-highest
reading being 113 ppb. A nonattainment designation appeared to be a possible outcome if
this trend continued, which would create an
undesirable burden on the local community
and industry (Figure 3).
Alliant Energy elevated the monitoring
data to the attention of local government and
economic officials on several occasions so
that they had an understanding of what a nonattainment designation could mean from a
development perspective. It was clear that the
situation required attention and that the data
the monitor was collecting could likely have
an impact on any future development plans
for the area. The data also could affect the
operations of industry that additional modeling would predict to have a contributing effect on the SO2 concentrations the monitor

68
www.powermag.com
POWER April 2016
4. Below the threshold. Monitored SO2 data for 2015 did not exceed the 75 ppb threshold. Courtesy: Alliant Energy
80
70
SO2 (ppb)
60
50
40
30
related to particulate matter and mercury collection efficiencies of the plants electrostatic
precipitators necessary to meet the recently
promulgated Utility Mercury and Air Toxics
Standards (MATS). Although the use of lower-sulfur coal posed a few logistical issues to
overcome, it was determined that the use of
the fuel was feasible, and it was moved forward fully in 2015.
20
Success
10
0
was detecting.
Designations of nonattainment with air
quality standards require agencies with
responsibility for air quality, such as the
LCPHD and the IDNR, to develop programs intended to reduce pollutant levels and
manage permits for new emissions source
development so the predicted pollutant concentrations do not intensify.
Early action and transparent discussions
led to a better understanding of the circumstances the area was facing. That communication helped to develop action plans to monitor
the issue and prevent reoccurrence of monitored SO2 levels in excess of the 1-hour SO2
standard. Proactively working with officials,
especially the LCPHD, developed a sense
of commitment and confidence that Alliant
Energy would be a partner in developing a
strategy to prevent monitored concentrations
above the standard.
A Necessarily Holistic View

To demonstrate this partnership, Alliant Energy commissioned a study by an independent research group to analyze the impact
that an SO2 nonattainment designation in the
area might have on economic development.
Internally, Alliant Energy initiated activities to analyze its potential impact on the
monitored SO2 values and what the company
might be able to do to mitigate its contribution. While it was clear that operations at
PCGS could be affecting the data the monitor was collecting, it was also apparent that
other SO2 emitting sources, including idling
mobile sources, likely had an influence.
In developing a strategy, Alliant Energy
determined that whatever steps it may decide
to take would have to be holistically evaluated. There were several competing influences that might affect operations at PCGS
as well as Alliant Energys electric and steam
customers and the community. Those considerations included:
Additional emerging air, water, and solid

waste environmental programs and forthcoming EPA requirements
Fuel availability
April 2016 POWER
Contractual agreements
Operational performance
Regulatory impacts
Shareholder considerations
Developing a balance in these matters required a proactive approach to decision-making while maintaining frequent, collaborative,
and transparent communications with stakeholder groups internally and externally.
Alliant Energy has an unyielding responsibility to provide safe, reliable, and
responsible energy to its customers. Any
decisions made to address the SO2 matter
would need to be in line with that obligation. While other environmental regulations
may affect future investments in PCGS,
Alliant Energy analyzed the possibility of
moving forward using a lower-sulfur coal
than what the plant had been utilizing, coupled with some natural gas blending that
could be accommodated under the plants
current configuration, especially since other changes were anticipated.
Alliant Energy conducted several air quality modeling exercises to assess the impact
that reductions in PCGS stack emissions
might have on predicted concentrations of
SO2, not only at the monitor, but also in the
area where models were predicting the highest concentrations might occur. The modeling methods and results were shared with the
LCPHD and the IDNR and were found to be
consistent with their methods.
Although only the predicted PCGS
emissions impacts were reviewed, the
models determined that reductions in stack
SO2 emission rates brought on by a fuel
change within the current abilities of the
plant could have a measurable effect on
SO2 concentrations in the area. But before
such a change could be implemented, Alliant Energy needed to understand whether
using such fuel would have operational or
other impacts on the plant and its ability to
live up to its responsibilities.
The lower-sulfur coal was strategically introduced to the fuel stream to analyze operational effects and any impacts it might have
on combustion byproducts, especially as they
www.powermag.com
During 2015, the SO 2 monitor in Tait

Cummins Park did not register any hourly
SO 2 concentrations that were found to be
above the 1-hour SO2 standard (Figure 4).
The fourth-highest daily maximum 1-hour
reading for the year ended up being 49.7
ppb, a significant difference from the year
before.
As of the writing of this article in late
February, 2016 has continued that trend.
While it cannot be said that the fuel changes
are the sole reason that monitored SO2 concentrations have been considerably lower,
the fuel change likely had a contributing
effect. Time will tell whether future influences such as other SO2-emitting sources,
the weather, and other contributors may affect the monitors readings.
Although the monitors data collection
wont provide LCPHD and the IDNR with
the ability to recommend an attainment designation, the ambient air quality modeling
that was conducted to support this decisionmaking will be a strong tool in making that
recommendation in the near future. In addition, it now seems possible to avoid a nonattainment designation for the region.
The primary lesson learned is that a proactive, collaborative, and transparent approach
to problem solvingcoupled with a willingness to communicate with stakeholders
goes a tremendously long way.
Alliant Energy appreciates the willingness of its stakeholdersespecially those
officials in Linn County, Iowa, in this
instanceto engage in productive discussions, develop well-thought-out messages,
and assess the many options that may be in
the best interest of those affected. By developing a clear understanding of the impacts
and possibilities, an ability to develop smart
and flexible solutions was created, with
time to adapt before an undesirable result
was upon us. Without this communication,
competing objectives might have been developed that could have had a detrimental
effect on the common goal.
Jeffrey Hanson, PE (jeffreyhanson

@alliantenergy.com) is senior managerenvironmental and decommissioning services
for Alliant Energy. This case study was also
shared at the 2016 EUEC conference.
69
RESILIENCY
Maximizing Coastal Power Plant

Resiliency
Hurricanes, tsunamis, and climate changeoperating a power plant on the
seacoast carries with it an array of unique challenges. Heres what some
generators are doing to ensure the lights stay on when Mother Nature
comes calling.
Thomas W. Overton, JD
Perhaps the largest threat to coastal power

plants is storm-related flooding, whether as a
result of a hurricane storm surge, heavy rains,
or some other threat. During Hurricane Sandy, Exelons Oyster Creek nuclear plant and
Unit 1 at Salem Generating Station (jointly
owned by PSEG and Exelon, Figure 2), both
in New Jersey, experienced abnormally high
intake water levels. Salem was forced to shut
down, while Oyster Creekoffline for refuelinghad to declare an alert.
PSEGs New Jersey fleet took a body
blow from Sandy, which landed a direct
hit on the Jersey Shore south of New York
City. The company saw nearly 4 GW of ca-
Gulf of Mexico, has been designed so that all

of its key equipment is elevated well above
mean sea level (Figure 3). Duke had originally designed the site to ride out a generic
100-year flood, but planners ultimately decided that planning for possible storm surges
was more prudent.
We designed for a Cat 3 storm surge,
which is about 21 feet above mean sea level,
so our super-critical equipment will be 24
feet in the air, and our critical equipment is
designed for a Cat 2 storm surge, which is
about 16 feet above sea level.
Dukes experience with multiple hurricanes over the past decade or so caused it
to reassess its severe storm planning. Toms,
Dukes experience with multiple hurricanes

over the past decade or so caused it to reassess its severe storm planning.
FS

/P
www.powermag.com
who was operations manager of the Crystal

River plant during some of those storms,
said that because of the flooding they experienced, they realized previous approaches
werent enough. We went back and re-wrote
our procedures for these kinds of events to
increase the number sandbags and other
equipment we needed to keep the water out.
t
pacity knocked offline by the storm. At one

plant, the 452-MW natural gasfired Kearny
Generating Station, the company had dedicated six new peaker units totaling 270 MW
scarcely a week before Sandy hit. Nearly all
of PSEGs customers experienced some sort
of outage. As a result, PSEG is in the middle
of a multi-billion-dollar initiative to harden
its fleet against future storms.
But severe storm planning is an ongoing
process.
Awareness of potential risks from storm
surges has grown since Sandy. Duke Energy,
with numerous plants along the Atlantic and
Gulf coasts, has made protection from storm
surge much more of a priority for its future
plants. Wayne Toms, manager of Dukes
1,113-MW Bartow Station in St. Petersburg,
Fla., explained to POWER in an interview
how the companys Citrus County Combined
Cycle plant, which broke ground north of
Tampa in March about 2.5 miles from the
t7PM
70
Flood Tide
0DUPC
ike experienced sailors, power plants

located along a coastline have always
looked at the sea as both a friend and a
potential enemy. Ocean waters provide vital
plant cooling, but the ocean can also bring
floods, storms, and heavy surf that can wreak
havoc with plant operations. That means that
designing, building, and operating a plant
along a coast requires a healthy respect for
the seas unpredictability.
Thats always been the case, but coastal resiliency issues have taken on new
prominence in recent years as a result of
major natural disasters such as Hurricanes
Katrina and Sandy, and more insidious
threats such as climate changeinduced
sea-level rise.
The scope of the threat depends on whom
you ask, but theres little dispute that its
growing. Even adjusting for inflation, the
incidence of disasters causing more than a
billion dollars of damage has been increasing, in part because coastal infrastructure has
been expanding over the past decades: There
is simply a lot more coastal property vulnerable to damage, including power plants. Even
though once-through cooling (OTC) is being
replaced by more environmentally friendly
methods, in many cases, new power plants
relying on air cooling are replacing plants
that relied on OTC on the same sites.
According to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, reported weatherrelated outages have increased substantially
in frequency over the past two decades even
as outages from other causes have remained
flat. While much attention has been devoted
to transmission infrastructuresuch as hardening grids through various means such as
burying power lines, better protecting transformers and substations from severe weather,
and leveraging microgrid and other advanced
transmission technology such as fiber optics (see sidebar)power plants remain key
anchors, because electricity cant be turned
back on after a disaster if area power plants
are offline as a result of damage.
Fuel and Staff Planning

Planning for fuel supply is also an element
of storm preparedness for coal-fired plants,
Toms noted. The hurricane season starts
June 1, and at Crystal River, we tried to have
at least 60 days of coal on the ground. Some
of the coal for Crystal River comes across the
Gulf of Mexico on barges from the Mississippi, and in bad weather, the barge deliveries
can get curtailed.
Storm planning also includes preparation
for plant staff. Toms said that when a hurricane is approaching, they will send half the
POWER April 2016
For more than 132 years, POWER magazine has been the leading source
for news, technology, and analysis used by more than 65,000 power plant
managers, engineers, and technicians as well as those who support the
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your colleagues? Receive your own subscription, at no cost,
by visiting: https://ai.omeda.com/powermagsub
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RESILIENCY
Entergy Tests Fiber Optic Cables to Slash Copper Use

A unique pilot under way at a substation in
New Orleans, La., uses fiber optic cables in
a way that could help utilities reduce the
use of copper wire. But its not what you
might think: According to Entergy Corp.,
which is spearheading the project, the fiber
optic cable doesnt actually transmit power.
Rather, its a channel for transferring data.
Currently, we have devices in our breakers called merging units, the company
told POWER in February (Figure 1). These
merging units complete analog-to-digital
conversion of data. Traditionally, copper
wire transmits current to the control house
(analog data). We used the merging unit to
convert that analog data to digital data.
From there, were streaming the data from
the breaker cabinet back to the control
house using the fiber optic cable.
Entergys project began in early 2014
with a team of engineers mapping ambitions to make new devices and systems
work together. For one, explained Dr. Chan
Wong, an Entergy senior engineer, fiber is
leaner than copper and is energized at a
lower voltage level. This leads to neater
facilities and reduced safety risks. After a
severe weather event, its quicker to restore fiber, which lies in buried channels
in a substation. In comparison to copper,
fiber can also be designed and installed for
about half the cost, and fiber is less likely
than copper to be stolen due to its lower
resale value.
By August 2015, the company had initiated a field pilot at the Joliet substation
in New Orleans. That project is still in the
evaluation and testing phase, so the pilot
equipment isnt actually controlling any
operations. However, Entergy is convinced
the technology holds promise. The installation of fiber in Americas substations
would advance substation automation and
staff home for 24 hours to handle their personal planning for their families, then allow
the other half to go home 24 hours later when
the first group returns.
Whether to shut the plant down entirely depends on a number of things, including how
close the storm would pass over the plant.
If we knew the storm was going to hit us directly, the plant would be shut down, period,
and everybody would be sent home, and we
would come back afterward to pick up the
72
1. Powerful plant fiber. Entergy is testing how it can expand the use of fiber to
reduce the use of copper wire in its assets, particularly in regards to international industry
standards for substation automation and communication systems in substations. This image shows the inside of one of the fiber cabinets at the companys pilot project at its Joliet
substation in New Orleans, La. Courtesy: Entergy
communication for all utilities, said Wong.

(Entergy isnt the first, nor the only utility, that is investigating the use of fiber
technology to cut copper use.) In addition, it would help us achieve interoperability and compatibility between different
manufacturers equipment. Think of it as
an Ethernet network for substations, one
that connects multiple systems and has encrypted protocols to control the passage of
information.
So far, the pilot has shown that fiber optic cable can reduce substation construction
materials, allowing for a shorter and easier
commissioning and testing process. Also,
and perhaps crucial for teams working to
pieces. Thats just the way we operate. If

there wasnt enough warning to shut down the
plantToms said they needed 36 hours for a
safe shutdown of Crystal Riverthen a skeleton staff of five or six people would remain
on site in the control room to ride it out.
Long-Term Horizons
Working from its experiences with Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Entergy sent some
waves through the power sector in 2010
www.powermag.com
restore power, equipment and device testing have been automated without the need
for test leads changes. System debugging
has also been simplified, and any alarms
within the system are easy to analyze.
Meanwhile, Entergy has collaborated with
utilities, research institutes, vendors, and
consultantsincluding the IEEE standard
committee and security expertsto probe
the possibilities and explore options that
meet security compliance and regulations
while maintaining the robustness of the grid.
The team is also working with the Electric
Power Research Institute to set up a global
design standard for using fiber technology.
Sonal Patel, POWER associate editor
when it launched an initiative to analyze and

quantify the risk its service area along the
Gulf Coast faced from future climate change.
What it found was that the region could expect more than $350 billion in potential damages from all environmental factors by 2030.
This represented a combination of increased
hurricane severity (as a result of ocean warming), subsidence, sea-level rise, and other
factors. One projection had New Orleans effectively turned into an island by 2100 as a
POWER April 2016
RESILIENCY
2. Blown out. Unit 1 at Salem nuclear
power plant was forced offline during Hurricane
Sandy when the storm surge entering Delaware
Bay caused dangerously high intake water levels. (Unit 2 was already offline for refueling.) The
plant shut down safely, and no damage was sustained. Courtesy: Peretzp/Wikipedia
result of a net sea level rise of just 1 meter.

The study identified a number of mitigation and adaptation methods that would
reduce potential damages. Onebuilding
levees around key infrastructurethough expensive, was identified as an important piece
of the puzzle because of its high return in the
event of a disaster. Another, wetlands restoration, was also highlighted for its ability to
mitigate storm surges and effects of subsidence and coastal erosion.
Entergy has worked to develop a frame-
3. Storm ready. Dukes new Citrus County Combined Cycle plant, under construction near
Tampa, Fla., was designed to withstand a Category 3 hurricane storm surge. All super-critical
equipment will be elevated 24 feet above mean sea level. Courtesy: Duke Energy
work and fact base to quantify climate risks

in the U.S. Gulf Coast and help inform economically sensible approaches for addressing
this risk and building a resilient Gulf Coast,
Entergy Louisiana spokesman Michael Burns
told POWER.
According to Burns, the company views

its response to climate change as an ongoing
process, and continues to track and monitor
changes in the Gulf Coast environment.
Thomas W. Overton, JD is a POWER

associate editor.
April 2016 POWER
www.powermag.com
73
GAS TURBINES
Rigorous Turbine Validation

Process Produces Sustained
Reliability Exceeding 99%
As technology capabilities and customer requirements have evolved, so have
gas turbine testing and validation methods. Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems believes the proof of its long-term validation process is in its turbines reliability metrics.
Carlos Koeneke
hy would one want to validate a
turbine design? The answer is that
actual operation of new and more
advanced gas turbines can reveal issues that
are very difficult to predict on the drawing
board. As a result, the validation process
must focus on the detection of design deficiencies that can be inadvertently introduced
when aiming for improved performance.
Gas turbine validation has improved considerably in the past two decades. The previous approach of testing at a beta facility
has evolved into a well-thought-out verification process at the original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) facilities, and that has
reduced clients exposure to prototypical
issues and the associated correction process.
Based on insurance community feedback,
more comprehensive validation has resulted
in a noticeable decrease in claims associated
with new and prototypical gas turbines.
ing the clients site for long-term validation.

But long-term OEM validation can be very
expensive. The main roadblock to extending validation at the OEM facility for longer
periods of time is the cost of fuel, as it can
surpass the cost of the gas turbine in just a
few months.
MHPSs solution to this financial constraint was to construct commercial combined cycle power plants with dispatching
contracts to the local utility. This concept
ensures operational expenses are covered
while the plants satisfy the clients generation requirements.
Figure 1 describes MHPSs approach to
the long-term validation cycle. This cycle
involves a continuous process wherein the
original design is developed in close interaction with the research and development
(R&D) team. The new unit is manufactured
From Shop Test to Plant Validation
1. Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems design and validation process.
Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems (MHPS)

started performing shop tests on its gas turbines in the 1980s at Takasago Machinery
Works. MHPSs first step to verify turbine
behavior and detect design issues consisted
of running the gas turbine coupled to an electric generator while using a water break to
dissipate the generated power. This approach
allowed detection of typical issues that might
occur during the first few hours of operation.
These include the tendency to experience
compressor surge, vibration, blade tip rubbing, high cycle fatigue, and several potential
failure mechanisms that take place during
short-term operation.
Although this approach represented an
improvement to postponing verification of
a prototype until installation at a client site,
numerous failure mechanisms will not occur until considerable operation time is accumulated. Performing only a few hours of
validation essentially means that one is us74
and operates commercially for long periods

at the MHPS combined cycle plant (T-Point),
where designs endure the rigors of commercially dispatched units.
Detailed inspections are conducted, looking for any signs to indicate an opportunity
for improvement. Enhanced designs are
developedagain in close cooperation with
R&D members supportand installed back
into the unit to be exposed to the same rigorous verification process. This cycle is repeated for as long as it takesuntil designers
and researchers are satisfied with the resulting reliability.
MHPSs long-term validation approach
for a prototype is typically conducted for one
or two years before units are offered to potential clients. Even after this time frame, the
T-Point unit remains in commercial operation
to fulfill the plants contractual commitments
Courtesy: MHPS
www.powermag.com
POWER April 2016
GAS TURBINES
2. The T-Point validation combined cycle plant. Courtesy: MHPS
equipment connected; individual equipment

inertia and coupling types; bearing span; and
support stiffness, damping, and individual
thermal growth.
Using a standard electric generator is particularly important, as its mass and inertia
is very different from other types of equipment. The design of the enclosure and its
ventilation allows for evaluation of external
cooling of the unit under different loads and
seasonal changes. By running connected to
the grid, the electric equipment associated
with power generationincluding excitation, automatic voltage regulator, and their

protectionsis also tested when performing
long-term validation.
Short-Term Validation Limitations

Many failure mechanisms are highly dependent on time, whereas others depend on time
and temperature. Low cycle fatigue, thermal
fatigue, creep, and thermal barrier coating
deterioration are just a few that are particularly important to understand for the steady
for supplying electricity. A new plant featuring the same equipment validated at T-Point
will benefit from further enhancements developed during the two to three years of construction of the entire new plant, since those
enhancements are phased into the MHPS
commercial product with a focus on continuously improving the gas turbine performance
and reliability.
This approach was first implemented in
the 50-Hz area of Japan, at a plant named KPoint in Kanazawa. It was later applied in the
60-Hz region at Takasago Machinery Works
(T-Point) with a 1 x 1 combined cycle plant,
shown in Figure 2.
Motivation for Building a

Commercial Validation Plant
Aeroderivative (aero) engines are designed
to be compact and light, and their validation
can be set up relatively quickly (Figure 3). In
contrast, heavy-duty gas turbines involve the
transportation and installation of frames that
can be more than 30 feet long and weigh 200
to 300 tons (Figure 4). The logistics involved
in shop validation of heavy duty equipment
are challenging and expensive, especially if
all of the effort and resources are focused on
the evaluation of short-term effects for just a
few hours.
The engineering desire to perform longterm validation, plus the elevated logistic
costs, provided an incentive for MHPS to
build an economically self-sustained plant
that allows for long-term verification and extension of the validation process once corrective modifications have been introduced.
T-Point validation involves running the
gas turbine and auxiliaries arranged in the
same MHPS standard power plant configuration that future plants featuring that type
of unit will experience. The plant replicates
the operating conditions that a future plant
will endure for 25 to 30 years. The vibration
modes of a turbine-generator train are heavily
dependent on several factors, including: the
April 2016 POWER
www.powermag.com
75
GAS TURBINES
3. Testing of an aero engine. Courtesy: Pratt & Whitney
clear cause, despite the availability of damaged

parts, ample data collected before and during
the incident, and the intervention of talented and
experienced metallurgists and fracture mechanics specialists.
There is no doubt that gas turbine design
has benefited enormously from recent computational enhancements, but the verification of
the components design resilience to complex
failure mechanisms, and their durability under
prolonged operation, can only be determined
by long-term exposure to sustained operation
under different demand conditions.
The Next Validation Plant

Evolution
4. Large frame adds large challenges. Transporting a large frame turbine, here an
M501J, poses challenges because of its size, which can be more than 30 feet long, and weight,
which can range from 200 to 300 tons. Courtesy: MHPS & GRDA
operation of gas turbines and require time to

develop and detect.
Short-term validation involves operation of equipment under new and clean
condition, making it difficult to assess the
degradation behavior of the prototypical
design. Additionally, wear and tear and its
resulting performance deterioration can
induce combustion instabilities that may
not be present under new and clean conditions.
The validation of gas turbines can include stringent tests to simulate severe
operating conditions that might never be
experienced in the field. These tests should
demonstrate that the new turbine can withstand the strain implied in those tests.
However, potential clients and insurance
companies are usually concerned with the
permanent effects such tests can have on
the hardware and are hesitant to purchase
these turbines. The gas turbines validated
at T-Point belong to T-Point and are never
sold to a client as a new unit.
76
Data vs. Demand Conditions

Data collection and analysis has been an
important keystone for the advancement
of science and engineering. The enormous
progress in computer power, simulation techniques, and sensor technology experienced
in the last decades has further improved our
industrys understanding of individual failure
and deterioration mechanisms.
Large amounts of data can be collected
during testing or operation of new gas turbines, enhancing the designers understanding of different potential failure mechanisms;
however, the complex stress-loading of components, especially the hot gas path parts,
still makes it difficult to fully correlate data
collected and the resulting distress and potential failure mechanisms.
Unfortunately, this limitation cannot be
simply overcome by increasing the volume of
data collected and analyzed. This fact becomes
evident by the complexity of root cause analysis
(RCA) of gas turbine failures. RCAs typically
arrive at a list of possible scenarios rather than a
www.powermag.com
At the time K-Point and T-Point went commercial, the computational power mentioned
above was not as advanced as it is today. Application of more-powerful computational
systems in R&D facilities and continuous
efforts to retrofit effective data-gathering
systems to the existing T-Point validation
plant have considerably improved MHPSs
understanding of complex stress interaction
and potential failure mechanisms. However,
for MHPS, the conclusion drawn more than
20 years ago remains unchanged: The final
verdict regarding parts resilience to timedependent failure mechanisms and durability
requires long-term operation, regardless of
the volume of data collected in labs or during
short-term controlled operation.
MHPS G-Series turbines were the first to
be subjected to the comprehensive validation process at T-Point. Today, the G fleet
has achieved a five-year rolling average reliability of 99.1%, according to the well-known
third-party company Strategic Power Systems
(SPS). The recently added J-Series gas turbine
fleet, which now has 17 units in commercial
operation around the globe, also went through
the rigorous validation process. To date, the
M501J fleet has accumulated over 220,000
actual operating hours and, more importantly, has already achieved a reliability record
matching MHPSs M501G fleet of over 99%.
Building on this long-term validation success, a new state-of-the-art combined cycle
plant is currently under construction adjacent
to T-Point. This new combined cycle plant
will incorporate state-of-the-art computational
tools, but above all, it was designed based on
MHPS standard plant configuration and will
also be connected to the grid for extended
periods of verification. This large investment
constitutes a clear demonstration of MHPSs
conviction that both short- and long-term validations are required to reduce risk of failures
and enhance reliability.
Carlos Koeneke, PhD is VP of Project

Engineering at Mitsubishi Hitachi Power
Systems Americas Inc.
POWER April 2016
Entergy Sheds Uneconomic

Merchant Nuclear Plants to Focus
on Regulated Business
Around the turn of the century, Entergy took a flyer on older, low-cost nuclear units to bid into new competitive wholesale markets. Facing pressure
from cheap gas and unanticipated political challenges, the company now
grapples with disentangling itself from unsustainable investments in merchant nuclear generation.
Kennedy Maize
ntergy Corp., a dominant investor-owned

utility in the middle south, hugging the
Mississippi River drainage area from
New Orleans to Memphis (including a piece
of Texas), faces what may be a unique generation transition. New Orleansbased Entergys
future may depend on how it can shed heavy,
money-losing investments made at the turn of
the 21st century in merchant nuclear units far
from its regulated Dixie service territory.
Entergys Generating Profile

Emphasizes Gas and Nuclear
Entergy has about 30,000 MW of generating
capacity, including 5,000 MW of merchant
generation outside of its state-regulated Mississippi River service territory. The majority
of the Entergy companies capacity is gas,
about 17,500 MW, with plants dating back
to the 1950s. The largest gas-fired station is
Ninemile Point in Westwago, La., at 2,083
MW. The first unit at the four-unit plant went
into service in 1955. The most recent, Ninemile Point 6, a 560-MW combined cycle unit,
entered service in 2014 (Figure 1).
Entergys other large gas-fired plants are
the 1,825-MW Sabine in Orange, Texas, and
1,651-MW Willow Glenn in St. Gabriel, La.
Given the utility systems location in the
heart of the Gulf Coast oil patch, that generating profile is no surprise. But elsewhere,
the company has sold off a merchant gas
plant (see sidebar, Entergy Sells Large R.I.
Gas Generator)just one sign of its lost appetite for the merchant business.
The oldest generators on the Entergy
system are hydro units dating back to the
companys earliest days (for a brief corporate history, see the sidebar, From Sawdust
to Utility Giant): three 4-MW plants in
Malvern, Ark., installed in 1925, and two 31MW units in Hot Springs, Ark., circa 1932.
Those are the only renewable assets on the
April 2016 POWER
utility books, according to the Entergy website. The wholesale side includes 40 MW of
wind in Iowa and another 40 MW in Texas.
Coal is a relatively small part of the Entergy
generating base, totaling 2,244 MW, all added to the Entergy system between 1980 and
1984. The largest coal plant is the two-unit,
934-MW White Bluff plant in Redfield, Ark.,
which went into service in 1980 and 1981.
After gas, nuclear is the second-largest
generating technology for the utility system:
five units with a total of 5,222 MW in nameplate capacity. Entergy commissioned Arkansas Nuclear Ones (ANOs) 836-MW Unit
1 in 1974 and the 987-MW Unit 2 in 1980.
Grand Gulf at 1,266 MW, arrived in Mississippi in 1985, along with Waterford 3 (1,159
MW) in Louisiana. River Bend in Louisiana
(974 MW) went into service in 1986.
Risky Merchant Power Business

Perhaps emboldened by its experience with
nuclear generation within its regulated business, Entergy, along with some other utilities
with successful regulated nuclear generation,
made a high-stakes bet as restructuring swept
the electric utility business in the late 1990s.
At the time, many experts believed that nuclear generating plants, with their high embedded capital costs and substantial operation
and maintenance expenses, would not be able
to compete in competitive markets.
Entergy disagreed, figuring it could acquire older units in wholesale markets at firesale prices. Some utilities with only one unit
under their control, and comfortable with
cost-of-service economic regulation, were
terrified of the impacts of competitive markets. They were eager sellers. Entergy saw
1. Ninemile Point 6. With easy access to abundant natural gas, its no surprise that Entergys portfolio in the Gulf Coast states favors that fuel. Courtesy: Entergy
www.powermag.com
77
Entergy Sells Large R.I. Gas Generator

As Entergys wholesale business moved to
close nuclear units in the Northeast, the
company was also unloading a large, modern combined cycle gas plant in Rhode
Island. Sale of the 583-MW Rhode Island
State Energy Center (RISEC) to The Carlyle
Groups Cogentrix Energy Power Management closed last December.
Entergy bought the plant from NextEra
Energy Resources for $346 million in December 2011. Entergy upgraded the capacity of the 13-year-old plant from 550 MW
to 583 MW, then agreed to sell it to Carlyles Cogentrix last fall for $490 million.
In a written statement, Entergy CEO Leo
Denault said, RISEC has been a good inthose plants as potentially solid competitors
in wholesale markets.
So Entergy launched a business strategy of
buying up elderly nuclear units in wholesale
territory. Over time, the company acquired
the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant
(operating license [OL] issued in 1972), Pilgrim in Massachusetts (OL 1972), the two Indian Point units in New York (OLs 1973 and
1975), and Palisades (OL 1971) in Michigan.
At peak, Entergy was operating six merchant
nuclear units, about 5,000 MW of capacity,
along with five nuclear units in its regulated
companies, also representing about 5,000
MW. The company was looking at a list of 10
to 12 other plants that might be acquisition
vestment for us, and its sale is consistent

with our strategy for Entergy Wholesale
Commoditiesto be disciplined about
reducing risk and freeing up financial resources for other opportunities.
RISEC sells power into the ISO-New England wholesale market. Matt OConnor, Carlyle managing director, said, RISEC is among
the most efficient combined-cycle facilities
in New England and is well-positioned to
capitalize on strong regional market dynamics for reliable generation. Additionally, the
retirement of aging generation in the region
is putting greater emphasis on efficient gasfired generators, like RISEC, to meet everyday electricity demand.
targets for merchant operations, according to
a former company insider.
Entergys merchant nuclear strategy soon
encountered problemstechnical and political. Vermont Yankee (Figure 2) suffered a
partial collapse of its wooden cooling towers
in 2007. It was not a nuclear accident, but it
sowed doubt among already skeptical state
regulators and political actors, including
then-Governor Jim Douglas, who had long
argued in favor of closing the plant. It also
cost Entergy millions of dollars in reduced
output from the plant and repair bills.
In 2010, a tritium leak at Vermont Yankee
contributed to political push-back against the
aging nuclear unit, again costing the compa-
2. Down for the count. Technical, political, and, finally, economic woes led to permanent
shutdown of the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant in December 2014. Courtesy: Nuclear
Regulatory Commission
78
www.powermag.com
ny millions and damaging its credibility, as

it was unable to locate the leak source. The
Vermont Yankee tritium leak also cost several
high-level company executives their jobs.
Entergy also faced intensifying political
opposition in Massachusetts and New York,
where both the Pilgrim and Indian Point plants
have long been controversial. According to a
former Entergy executive, who spoke to POWER on condition of anonymity, the company
never conducted any political risk analysis of
its merchant nuclear purchases, focusing solely on economics. Both economics and politics
came to bedevil Entergys merchant operations. The company would have been better
off economically had it understood the local
politics, the former executive said.
Economics upset Entergys profit-andloss calculations just as politics complicated
its merchant nuclear business model. The
development of hydraulic fracturing and
low-cost, plentiful natural gas hit the competitive wholesale generating market beginning
around 2008. That left Entergy with nuclear
plants unable to sell their output at a profit.
In discussing the companys third-quarter
results last November, Entergy CEO Leo
Denault commented, Wholesale electricity
markets are failing to produce accurate price
signals to reflect the true marginal cost of
providing energy and capacity, challenging
the long-term sustainability of these markets. The nuclear industry has been arguing,
unsuccessfully so far, that wholesale markets
dont account for the value of the zero carbon
dioxide emissions of nuclear generation.
Nuclear Shutdowns and

Threatened Shutdowns
In 2013, Entergy announced it would close
the 620-MW Vermont Yankee, which it acquired in 2001 for $180 million. Despite
long-running, intense political battles over
the plant in Vermont, economics ended its
41-year run. Bill Mohl, head of the Entergy
Wholesale Commodities business unit, told
the Wall Street Journal, The bottom line
is the plants costs exceed its revenue as we
look into the future. The decision was solely
based on economics.
Last fall, Entergy announced it will close
the 690-MW Pilgrim plant on Cape Cod,
which it acquired in 1998 for $80 million
(the plant cost $231 million to build in 1972),
and the 839-MW FitzPatrick plant in upstate
New York. That leaves Entergys wholesale
nuclear program potentially with three operating units: the two Indian Point units, totaling 2,200 MW, and the 800-MW Palisades
plant in Michigan. The fate of those units is
also in doubt.
In New York, Entergy finds itself in a complex, convoluted political battle with Demo-
POWER April 2016
3. Numbered days? Although Entergy wants to continue operating the two-unit Indian
Point Energy Center, New Yorks governor and anti-nuclear advocates are determined to shut it
down. Courtesy: Nuclear Regulatory Commission
cratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo and a bevy of

anti-nuclear and green energy activists. Entergy
wants to continue operating Indian Point (Figure 3); Cuomo et al. want to close it. Entergy
says it will shut down FitzPatrick; Cuomo
wants to keep it running. For Entergy, as Bill
Mohl said about Vermont Yankee, its all about

economics. For Cuomo, its entirely politics.
Cuomo, son of the legendary Democratic
politician Mario Cuomo, also a New York
governor, has finely honed political instincts
and sharp elbows. Democratic politicians and
environmentalists in the Empire State have

long battled to close Indian Point because of
its 45-mile proximity to the nations largest
city. Indian Point opponents are Cuomos
base; he openly campaigned to close Indian
Point when he was New Yorks attorney
general from 2007 to 2010. New York, under Cuomos direction, argues that Entergy
should build closed-cycle cooling towers at
Indian Point, at a cost of around $2 billion, a
likely show-stopper.
In the case of FitzPatrick, the nuclear plant
sits in political territory largely hostile to Cuomo.
He would draw blame if the plant shuts down
and some 600 workers lose good jobsalong
with spin-off damage to the local, already shaky
economy. Cuomo is also trying to keep Exelons
two upstate merchant nukesGinna and Nine
Mile Pointin service despite the fact that they
are also running up red ink.
Cuomo came up with a plan to subsidize
FitzPatrick with zero emission credits,
the equivalent of tradable renewable energy
credits. They would also apply to Exelons
610-MW Ginna station near Rochester and
Exelons two-unit, 1,700-MW Nine Mile Point
station, FitzPatricks next door neighbor.
Entergy says Cuomos plan comes too late.
FitzPatrick will shut down at the next refueling
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April 2016 POWER
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79
date, late this year or early in 2017. Entergys
Mohl commented that either closing the plant or
refueling take considerable lead time, rendering
the Cuomo plan impractical. Its frankly too
late for FitzPatrick, he told Syracuse.com.
Financial Implications
UBS utilities analyst Julien Dumoulin-Smith
in early February commented that, at the
moment it looks as though FitzPatrick will
be closed. While relationships are frosty, a
potential compromise could be worked out
involving an orderly shutdown deal on Indian Point (potentially a 10-year deal, etc.),
while allowing the continued operation of
Fitz for the time being. This could require the
governor to modify some of his public positions. But should this happen, we note that
[Entergy] seems to see the business as peripheral given the substantial closures that
have transpired already.
At Palisades in Michigan, CMS Energy,
which sold the plant to Entergy, agreed as
part of the deal to a long-term contract to
buy power from the plant. Dumoulin-Smith
commented in November that he has doubts
around the Palisades unit in Michigan and
contract back to CMS (here the contract
would appear to be potentially break-even or
under water).
Entergys excursion into merchant nuclear generation has tarnished the companys
value. Entergy common stock was trading at
over $125/share at the beginning of 2008 and
plummeted to around $60/share in the summer
of 2011. The company lost half of its market
capitalization in three years. The stock was
trading at about $70/share early this year.
Nor has the companys regulated side been
a stellar performer. Dumoulin-Smith of UBS
criticized execution at the regulated utilities,
where sales have lagged prior commitments
due in part to the slowdown in the regional
energy and industrial economy. He rates Entergys stock as a sell.
More Nuclear Challenges Ahead

Whats in Entergys future? In addition to the
everyday challenges of running a mammoth
holding company with 2.8 million customers,
30,000 MW of generating capacity, and $12
billion in annual revenues, the company faces
the task of simultaneously decommissioning
up to three nuclear plants: Vermont Yankee,
where the project is already under way, and
potentially Pilgrim and FitzPatrick. Nuclear
decommissioning of large plants remains a
frontier venture. Closing each plant will cost
hundreds of millions of dollars, presumably
paid out of the decommissioning funds accumulated during the plants operation.
Over the objections of state government
officials, the Nuclear Regulatory Commis80
From Sawdust to Utility Giant

Entergy describes its origins as a pile of
sawdust and a handshake. H.H. Foster,
head of a lumber and land company in Arkansas, hooked up with energy entrepreneur Harvey Couch of the Arkansas Power
Co. in 1913. With a franchise to provide
electricity to two Arkansas towns, Couch
agreed to a handshake deal to buy sawdust
from Fosters lumber mill as boiler fuel to
generate power. The electric company was
called Arkansas Light and Power.
Within a decade, according to Entergys
official history, Couch built a 9-MW hydro
generator on the Ouachita River, along
with a 300-mile distribution system.
Couch had a larger vision. He bought up
independent electric companies in Mississippi, launching the Mississippi Power
and Light Co., planning to link Arkansas
and Mississippi. Couch formed the Louisiana Power Co. to take advantage of that
states abundant natural gas, starting up
the Sterlington gas-fired station in 1925.
At 30 MW, it was the largest power station
south of St. Louis, Mo.
Enter Sidney Mitchel, a leader of the Electric Bond and Share Co. (Ebasco), a General
Electric company. In the early 1920s, Mitchel gobbled up the electric service business
in New Orleans and was moving into Little
Rock and Memphis. Couch and Mitchel soon
joined forces, creating Electric Power and
Light Corp., run by Couch. This company
would eventually become Entergy.
Despite the 1930s Great Depression,
the company survived as part of the empire built by Samuel Insull, Thomas Edisons former secretary and a business
genius. Insull created a pyramid of electric holding companies, such as Ebasco,
owning holding companies owning hold-
ing companies owning electric companies.

The 1935 Public Utility Holding Company
Act forced the breakup of Insulls business
pyramid, including Ebasco.
In 1949, Ebascos Electric Power and
Light Corp. became stand-alone Middle
South Utilities, consisting of Arkansas
Power and Light, Mississippi Power and
Light (MP&L), Louisiana Power and Light
(LP&L), and New Orleans Public Service.
Over the next 40 years, the utility holding
company grew and began to diversify away
from its reliance on natural gas. Arkansas
Power and Light in 1968 won an Atomic
Energy Commission construction permit
for the first unit of Arkansas Nuclear One
(ANO), an 846-MW Babcock & Wilcox pressurized water reactor (PWR), which went
into service in 1974. ANO Unit 2, a 930MW Combustion Engineering PWR, went
commercial in 1978.
In 1970, LP&L announced plans for the
Waterford nuclear plant near Taft, La. Two
years later MP&L announced it would build
the 1,266-MW Grand Gulf station near
Port Gibson, Miss., eventually cancelling
plans for a second unit at the site. Middle
Souths first coal-fired plant, the twounit, 1,700-MW White Bluff station, came
online near Pine Bluff, Ark., in 1980 and
1981. (Entergy announced last year that it
will phase out White Bluff by 2028.)
Middle South became Entergy in 1989
as a rebranding effort, the first of the
wave of sometimes comical renamings of
electric and gas companies in the 1990s
and 2000sincluding Cinergy, Exelon,
Dynegy, Ameren, NRG, Dominion, and
FirstEnergy. In 1992, Entergy acquired
Gulf States Utilities, operating in eastern
Texas and southwest Louisiana.
Wholesale electricity markets

are failing to produce accurate
price signals to reflect the true
marginal cost of providing energy and capacity, challenging
the long-term sustainability of
these markets.
Entergy CEO Leo Denault
www.powermag.com
POWER April 2016
4. Inching toward solar power. This
facility in Mississippi is one of three solar photovoltaic installations in Entergy territory, totaling 1.5 MW. Courtesy: Entergy
sion (NRC) recently approved Entergys Vermont Yankee decommissioning plan. Entergy
expects to mothball (SAFSTOR, in NRCspeak) the plant for the next 40 to 50 years
before dismantling the unit. Entergy expects
that the current $655 million fund it holds to
decommission the plant will grow as the innards become less radioactive, reducing the
cost of dismantlement.
Conflicts between the state and the utility
over decommissioning have surfaced. Vermont has sued over Entergys use of decommissioning funds to pay current expenses,
including property taxes, and the utilitys
plan to reduce emergency planning functions
at Vermont Yankee.
Entergy also faces problems with the management of its operating nuclear plants. The
NRC in late January sent a special team of 25
inspectors to Entergys two-unit ANO to address degraded safety. Following inspections
in June 2014 and January 2015, the agency
put the two units into what it calls Category
4, the highest risk level of the agencys reactor performance ratings, just short of ordering a shutdown. A 2013 crane collapse at
ANO killed a contract worker and injured
eight others, triggering the NRC review.
Pilgrim also faces increased federal scrutiny,
including a Category 4 designation. A series of
long-standing safety issues, none of which were
show-stoppers, built up in aggregate, warranting
increased oversight, according to the NRC.
Most recently, in early February, Entergy
discovered elevated tritium levels in three of
40 monitoring wells at Indian Point. In a statement, the company said, While the effect of
these elevated values is less than one-tenth of
one percent of federal reporting guidelines, Entergy made voluntary notification to the NRC,
state agencies and key stakeholders. Gov.
Cuomo offered a different spin, citing alarming levels of the slightly radioactive isotope.
This latest failure at Indian Point is unacceptable, he said. He ordered the states Department of Environmental Conservation and the
Health Department to fully investigate.
April 2016 POWER
At the end of January, Entergy announced

it had hired A. Christopher Bakken III as the
new chief nuclear officer, effective this month
(April). Bakken is a 30-year nuclear veteran,
most recently working as the Electricit de
France project director at the Hinkley Point
C project in Great Britain. He will be responsible for all of Entergys nuclear operations.
Entergy also must cope with slow growth
in its main service territory, particularly as the
energy and petrochemical industries that underpin its local economy confront falling oil
and natural gas prices. The companys demand
growth projections have been overly optimistic recently, according to Dumoulin-Smith.
ND
EDITION
THE LEADING EVENT

FOR THE GLOBAL NUCLEAR
ENERGY SECTOR
Slow Start on Renewables

Entergy is gingerly testing renewables, for
which it has historically shown little interest.
MP&L is installing three pilot solar photovoltaic installations in Mississippi (Figure 4),
totaling 1.5 MW, which the company says are
the first-ever utility owned solar projects in
Mississippi. The cost for all three sites, according to the company, is under $5 million.
Meanwhile, in November last year, Entergy Louisiana stopped providing full (retail)
net metering credit to customers with rooftop
solar panels, as it had reached its 0.5% capacity threshold. In a letter to the Public Service Commission, Entergy Louisiana Senior
Counsel Michael Plaisance said the utilitys
customers had installed 8,203 net-metered
solar systems with a total capacity of 47.4
MWthe equivalent of 0.57% of Entergys
peak load of 8,270 MW in October 2014.
Then, in December, the Mississippi Public
Service Commission approved a net metering plan for customer-sited solar generation,
with a cap of 3% of system peak load and
at the wholesale rate plus 2.5/kWh (rather
than the retail rate).
In an email, Entergy told POWER, Only
one of our five utilities operates in a state
with a renewable portfolio standard (Texas).
Our current retail rates are well below the
national average. . . . So with that in mind,
we have taken a number of actions in recent
years related to renewable energy. . . . Entergy is constantly working across our five
operating companies to gain the necessary
information and expertise to make renewables a more viable, cost-effective option to
serve our customers.
The company notes that it has bought
millions of dollars in Texas renewable energy credits to satisfy its renewable targets. In
February, New Orleans Public Service broke
ground on a 1-MW solar project combined
with lithium-ion battery storage.
Kennedy Maize is a long-time energy

journalist and frequent contributor to
POWER.
www.powermag.com
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NUCLEAR POWER
The Global Nuclear Power Industry

Faces Localized Outlooks
Recent developments in nuclear power reveal a common theme: Uncertainty
and unpredictability prevail. Many different nuclear industries are developing within and among the nations of the world, all with differing
prospects.
Kennedy Maize
hamelessly adapting the great British novelist Charles Dickens, for the
global nuclear industry, it is the best of
times, it is the worst of times; it is the age of
wisdom, it is the age of foolishness; it is the
epoch of belief, it is the epoch of incredulity; it is the season of light, it is the season
of darkness; it is the spring of hope, it is the
winter of despair.
Globally, the nuclear power business often
seems befuddling, head-scratching, mindnumbing. Its up, its down, its all around.
Atomic energy today is not a tale of one or
two more or less coherent industries, but
of multiple sellers and multiple buyers and
multiple sources of finance in various countries, with markets ranging from freely competitive to private monopolies to state-owned
and often state-run enterprises. All these are
sometimes intertwined.
Business Model Matters for the

U.S. Nuclear Industry
Lets start with the U.S., the largest nuclear
energy producer in the world, and a tale of
two markets (although the federal governments Tennessee Valley Authority has a
third position). Some U.S. nuclear power
plants compete in wholesale markets, now
serving about half of the U.S. population.
These nuclear plants bid their power into
auctions against coal, gas, and renewables
for the privilege to supply power and be paid
for the work.
That market isnt working well for the
nukes. Witness Entergy (see Entergy Sheds
Uneconomic Merchant Nuclear Plants to
Focus on Regulated Business in this issue
or online at powermag.com), which made a
major foray into merchant nuclear plants in
the 1990s, only to see the economics undercut by low-cost gas and subsidized renewables, mostly wind. As the annual Platts
nuclear energy conference in Washington
was under way in February, New Orleans
based Entergy Corp. reported it had gone
from $971 million in profits for 2014 to a
82
stunning loss of $177 million in 2015.

Entergys red ink bloodbath was due to its
inability to sell power from nuclear plants in
competitive markets in New York and New
England. The company announced in late
2015 that it would close the Pilgrim nuclear
plant in Massachusetts and the FitzPatrick
plant in upstate New York. Entergy will close
Pilgrim in mid-2019 and FitzPatrick in mid2017. Entergy shut down its Vermont Yankee
plant at the end of 2014.
Discussing the companys decision to shutter two more nuclear plants, Entergy CEO
Leo Denault said, Closing Pilgrim and FitzPatrick was not the path we wanted to take.
After pursuing many alternatives, they ultimately were the only options remaining for
us. In contrast, Entergys five nuclear units
in regulated monopoly markets in the middle
south are doing quite well financially.
A flip side is Southern Company, eschewing competitive markets, hewing to stateregulated cost-of-service rates for its nuclear
units. Southern utility Georgia Power is building two new, 1,100-MW Westinghouse pres-
surized water reactors at its existing Vogtle

two-unit station (Figure 1). Although the
construction project is running over budget
and behind schedule, the company is convinced it will turn out to be a good deal for
itself and its customers.
Stan Wise, chairman of the Georgia Public
Service Commission (PSC), told the Platts
meeting that the new Vogtle units will be a
win for the states consumers, avoiding rate
shocks that accompanied nuclear units in the
1980s. He praised the independent Vogtle
construction monitor for a keen eye on the
progress and costs of the project. The day
after Wise appeared at the Platts meeting,
Georgias PSC approved recovery of an additional $148 million in costs the company
submitted, to which the construction monitor
had given a thumbs-up.
According to Georgia Power, The projected overall peak rate impact of the Vogtle
nuclear expansion is significantly less than
when the project was certified due to financial and other benefits that we have proactively pursued, and the fuel savings of nuclear.
1. Nuclear on the rise. This January 2016 aerial view shows the construction site for
Plant Vogtle Units 3 and 4, with Units 1 and 2 in the background. Courtesy: Georgia Power Co.
www.powermag.com
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2. Slow-moving project. The new, third unit at Finlands Olkiluoto plant, shown here in October 2015, has been dogged by delays, schedule overruns, and contractor disputes. Courtesy: TVO
who point to the still-enormous capital costs

of nuclear. Georgias Wise, a solid nuclear
advocate, demurred when asked at the Platts
conference whether the commission would
consider additional nuclear units in the Peach
State. He said he would prefer to digest the
experience from Vogtle before considering
more nuclear construction.
Morgan Stanley investment banker Anthony Ianno told the Platts meeting he is
decidedly bearish on new U.S. nuclear.
With natural gas prices historically low and
showing no signs of increase, capital costs
of nuclear five times that of gas-fired generation, and electricity demand increasing
slowly, Its hard to make a decision to invest
in new nuclear. Its very hard for a CEO to
make that decision. Its easier to say no than
to go forward.
Nuclears Fate Depends on Its

Nation State
Wise told the Platts meeting that the overall
rate increase to customers for the two new
nuclear unitsprobably coming online in
2019 and 2020would be 7%. Helping keep
that increase low is an $8 billion Department
of Energy loan guarantee, which reduces the
capital cost of the plant.

Does Georgia Powers experienceand
that of SCANA Corp.s Summer project in
South Carolina, similar to the Vogtle expansionmean a rebirth of new U.S. nuclear
plants? Unlikely, according to many analysts,
The non-U.S. experience with nuclear power

is more complex. A key to whether a country will build new nuclear capacity is often a
matter of who will finance extremely expensive plants, under what conditions. Most of
the markets, particularly those dominated by
state-owned utilities, are far from transpar-
Platts World
Electric Power
Plants Database
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units? Platts World Electric Power Plants Database
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POWER April 2016
NUCLEAR POWER
ent. Below are a few of the countries where the fate of nuclear power
is in flux. (For more nuclear power developments, click the Nuclear
tab at powermag.com.)
Finland. The experience in the more transparent of those markets
has not been encouraging for new investment. Finlands TVO utility, for example, has had a terrible experience adding a new, Frenchengineered AREVA EPR pressurized water reactor unit to its existing
two-unit Olkiluoto station (Figure 2). The project is now nearly a decade behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget. The project
forced AREVA to seek a bailout from its major shareholder, government-owned Electricit de France (EDF).
On the other hand, Russian state nuclear power agency Rosatom
early this year broke ground on a new 1,200-MW plant in northern
Finland, partnering with Finnish utility Fennovoima. That project is estimated to cost $9 billion and be in service in 2024. Finland has long
had close ties with its neighbor Russia, building Soviet-designed pressurized water reactors, then upgrading them to U.S. safety standards.
France. AREVA has also had serious problems building new nuclear capacity in France. The French government, historically the most
bullish of nuclear countries, is scaling back its plans for new nuclear.
Japan. Japan still reels from the March 2011 Fukushima disaster,
which forced the country to shut all of its nuclear units. Japan is slowly bringing nuclear back into service, with what the country claims is
stricter supervision of the operating utilities.
Germany. Germany, once a leader in civilian nuclear power, is
phasing out nuclear. At the time of Fukushima, Germany got 25%
of its electricity from 17 reactors. The country announced the phaseout not long after the Japanese catastrophe. According to the World
Nuclear Association (WNA), the nuclear market share in Germany
had dropped to 16% from eight operating reactors in 2015.
China. China remains dedicated to a nuclear future, driven in part
by crippling air pollution from coal use in Chinese cities, including
the capital of Beijing. The WNA reports that China has 30 operating reactors, 24 under construction, and more in queue. Whether the
severe slowdown in the Chinese economy will slow its nuclear plans
is unknown. China has three nuclear firmsChina National Nuclear
Corp., China General Nuclear Power Group, and State Nuclear Power
Technology Corp.all state-owned.
China, which originally worked with France on nuclear plant design and engineering, is now exporting nuclear technology, competing mostly with Russias Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corp.
South Africa. South Africa announced in February that it plans to
add 9,600 MW of nuclear capacity to the two 1970s vintage, 970-MW
French reactors at Koeberg (Figure 3), the only nuclear plants on the
African continent. President Jacob Zuma said during his annual stateof-the-nation speech on February 13, Our plan is to introduce 9,600
megawatts of nuclear energy in the next decade in addition to running
the Koeberg Nuclear Power Plant.
China and Russia are expected to be the leading bidders for the
work, according to Nigerias The News. Rosatom is likely to offer to
design, build, and finance the nuclear plant at its own expense, and
then charge South Africa for the electric power.
3. Alone in Africa. If South African President Jacob Zuma has

his way, the 1,800-MW Koeberg Nuclear Generating Station could be
dwarfed by an addition of 9,600 MW of new capacity within the next
decade. Courtesy: Creative Commons/Phillip P Egli
PricewaterhouseCoopers outlined six ways to finance nuclear plants,

other than traditional government funding:
Corporate balance sheet finance. This was typical financing for

much of the U.S. fleet but is really only an option for the largest utilities and developers, according to Reilly, as the cost of a
large nuclear station runs in the vicinity of $20 billion, a bet-thecompany proposition for many utilities.
The French Exceltium model. Between 2005 and 2010, industrial investors and banks in France formed Exceltium, consortia
to contract with EDF, the state-owned electric utility, to finance
new plants in return for guarantees of cheaper electricity from
EDFs portfolio.
The Finnish Mankala model. Shareholders in the Mankala, a co-
Footing the Bill for Nuclear Power

Financing the capital costs of nuclear stations is a major hurdle for
those wanting to build new nuclear capacity, whether in the rich countries of the world or the poor. State-owned nuclear enterprises have
an easier financing path and have been the dominant way plants were
built in the past. But even state enterprises require access to hard currency to buy the commodities that underpin all power plants, including basics such as steel and concrete and services such as advanced
welding, plumbing, construction, and electrical services.
Writing in World Nuclear News earlier this year, Fiona Reilly of
April 2016 POWER
www.powermag.com
85
NUCLEAR POWER
operative consisting of industrialists and
utilities, take shares in the power plant.
Reilly writes, The owners of the Mankala
are allowed and obliged to purchase electricity from the power plant equal to their
shareholding at a cost price. This electricity can then be used by the investors or can
be sold into the market.
dors technology being deployed in the

new facility.
Export credit agencies debt and financing.
Non-recourse/limited recourse financing,
where the lenders have no/limited recourse
to the borrower and the only collateral for
the loan is the project itself, writes Reilly,
is seen as the nirvana of nuclear new-
Georgias Wise, a solid nuclear advocate,

demurred when asked at the Platts conference whether the commission would consider additional nuclear units in the Peach
State. He said he would prefer to digest
the experience from Vogtle before considering more nuclear construction.
Vendor equity. In the late 2000s, says

Reilly, it was recognized that reactor
technology vendors may be able to support new build projects financially as well
as technologically. Vendor equity helps
to finance a project in return for the ven-
build. This dream scenario is far off.

Private financing with government support. This can take various forms, such
as a guarantee to support debt coming
into a project, as in the U.S. federal loan
guarantees to Georgia Power in the Vogtle
project, revenue guarantees such as power

purchase agreements, or both.
Conditional Optimism
What does the future hold? Given the complexities of the world market, thats a difficult
question. The International Energy Agency
in its World Energy Outlook 2014 suggested
substantial nuclear power growth through
2040, in the range of 60%. Anyone who has
followed energy broadly for the past few decades would view such long-range scenarios
skeptically.
More credible is the International Energy
Agencys 2014 statement, cited by the WNA
that, Despite the challenges it currently faces, nuclear power has specific characteristics
that underpin the commitment of some countries to maintain it as a future option. . . . Nuclear plants can contribute to the reliability
of the power system where they increase the
diversity of power generation technologies in
the system. For countries that import energy,
it can reduce their dependence on foreign
supplies and limit their exposure to fuel price
movements in international markets.
Kennedy Maize is a long-time energy

journalist and frequent contributor to
POWER.
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POWER April 2016
Fluid Sealing
PHOTO: NOSTAL6IE | DREAMSTIME.COM
special advertising section
FLUID SEALING SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION
Maximizing the life of fabric penetration seals

Matt Long of EagleBurgmann Expansion Joint Solutions explains how best to use modern
gas-tight fabric expansion joints for heat recovery steam generators (HRSGs)
guidelines will help achieve longevity from
a fabric penetration seal installation.
Professional installation
Even the greatest designs and advanced
materials can be negated by an improper
installation; an inexperienced crew can
lead to rapid failure and forced downtime.
Operating conditions and movements are
different at every site, even amongst the
same manufacturers, so experience cannot
be overlooked when identifying potential issues during installation. Choosing a supplier with professional and experienced crews
will provide an immediate payback, and is
the surest way to protect your investment.
Fabric seals should be engineered for
the exact movements and conditions at
each piping penetration, and movements
should be verified in the field before installation. OEM as-built drawings are the best
resource for proper design, but dont always represent the current operating conditions and changes to the surrounding area.
Penetration seals should therefore be builtup on site and installed after verification of
dimensions and movements.
Figure 1: Intense heat, large movements,
and limited space create difficult design
challenges for HRSG pipe penetrations
eat recovery steam generator (HRSG) pipe

penetrations are an aggressive and difficult location to seal exhaust gas (Figure 1). As
designs and materials have improved, last decades rag joints are now highly engineered
gas-tight solutions, and sites are relying on
fabric penetration seals more often to ensure
safe and reliable operation.
Metal and fabric expansion joints at a
piping penetration are referred to as pen
seals. Modern fabric pen seals are constructed with layers of high-temperature
fiberglass cloth, insulation, and a gas barrier. The flexibility these components offer
is ideal when accommodating the axial
and lateral movements seen in boiler pipes
throughout an HRSG.
In HRSG applications, piping penetrations create a unique set of challenges to
overcome: intense heat, large movements,
and limited space for installation and operation. Fabric penetration seals offer a
gas-tight alternative to slider seals, and
can be a cost-effective solution to replace
metal bellows. Any O&M project should be
given the best chance to succeed, and these
88
Figure 3: Before replacement

of fabric penetration seals
stallers should work together to properly insulate pipes and headers to prevent excess
heat on the fabric seal.
Similar to other fabric expansion joints,
never insulate over the flanges, clamping
bands, or outer cover. Insulation cladding
should be tapered to the pipe attachment
Create an environment for success

Before installation, proactively identify and
fix problem areas around the penetration
that can contribute to early failure.
Identify hot spots on the HRSG casing
where paint is missing, repair liner plates,
and replace missing insulation. Locate other
external sources for heat attacks: these
include leaking slider seals or drains with
failing bellows.
The expansion joint must be able to
breathe and reject heat to maintain a cool
outer surface and protect the gas-tight
barrier. Insulators and expansion joint in-
Figure 4: After installation of gastight fabric penetration seals

flange, providing a safe operating environment without directing heat onto the
expansion joint (Figure 2). The surrounding structures should allow for ventilation
across the module to lower the ambient
temperature, and prevent radiation from the
HRSG casing to the seal (Figures 3 and 4).
Plan ahead
Figure 2: Avoid directing heat onto the

expansion joint by tapering insulation
to the pipe attachment flange
www.powermag.com
Allowing for inspection before the outage will result in a proper design for each
unique penetration. Fabric expansion joints
are highly engineered, custom products;
but not all fabric penetration seals are
equal. Plant owners should partner with an
FSA member company with experience and
expertise, and review references from similar installations to ensure the best return on
investment.
POWER April 2016
How improved packing saved critical steam valves

A power company called in Chesterton to solve a problem of expensive downtime caused
by short packing life on high-pressure steam valves
n one particular North American power

plant, the main steam isolation, start-up,
and non-return valves were blowing out
their packings twice a year. Between the
safety issues, downtime, and repairs this
was becoming a very expensive problem.
High-pressure steam leaks create a
safety hazard and reduce the efficiency
of the entire plant. Steam leaks were also
damaging the electric actuators, resulting in average repair costs of over $10,000.
The last-ditch effort of drilling and tapping a valve cost $1,200 for the service and
$12,00025,000 to repair the valve afterwards. The forced outages cost millions.
On this valve design the stuffing box was
unnecessarily deep, resulting in higher bolt
and gland stresses, and increasing packing
consolidation. Called in to help, Chesterton
installed carbon bushings chosen for their
thermal stability and high compressive
strength. The shortened packing boxes

used five rings of packing, which tests have
shown to be optimal.
The existing packing was replaced with
Chesterton Style One braided graphite yarn
end rings and 5300 graphite tape sealing rings. Both are constructed from highpurity, high-density graphite without any
binders, fillers, or resins, and incorporate
an inorganic passive corrosion inhibitor.
The valves were also live-loaded with disc
springs to provide the compressive load on
the packing. This has several advantages,
including ensuring that the proper load is
applied to the packing upon installation,
and better maintaining that load as process conditions fluctuate and the packing
consolidates.
Together these technologies worked
to radically extend the life of several critical valves at the facility. Direct savings were
well over $100,000 per year, but the real

savings came with increased reliability and
fewer unplanned outages. This shows how
applications can be made safe and reliable
by combining several technologies with engineering knowledge. www.chesterton.com
New lease on life: Chesterton

bushings, packing, and live loading
prevented further blowouts
Rubber expansion joints

S
ince 1950, General Rubber Corp. has been at the forefront of innovative rubber expansion joint design and manufacturing. With
its experienced engineers and sales team, the company provides
powerful solutions to even the most demanding applications across
multiple industries and sectors.
General Rubber is both ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 certified, and
leverages its state-of-the-art U.S. manufacturing facility to lower operating costs
while respecting the environment.
The company is committed to providing quality, defect-free performance
products at competitive prices.
General Rubber is particularly
proud of its programs focused on
EPC and MRO. For the EPC sector, a Best Piping Practice and
Optimization (BPPO) program
brings benefits including lower
material and construction costs
and a smaller system footprint. For
the MRO sector, the company offers a Plant Reliability and Efficiency
Program (PREP) to transition customers from either an overly conservative
calendar-based replacement program, or
a somewhat reckless approach based on runto-failure, to a condition-based predictive maintenance program.
In addition, the use of advanced materials and technologies has
differentiated General Rubber as a leader in the industry and is the
principal reason its performance products, in the companys own
words, range From the Simple to the Simply Amazing.
www.general-rubber.com
April 2016 POWER

www.powermag.com
89
Global experience in expansion joint solutions

EagleBurgmann Expansion Joint Solutions serves the power generation industry through
its 60 subsidiaries and 250 production and service facilities worldwide
agleBurgmann Expansion Joint

Solutions is a leading global organization in the development of expansion joint
and sealing technology; working to meet
the challenges of todays ever-changing
environmental, quality and productivity
demands. With 60 subsidiaries and 250
production and service facilities worldwide,
EagleBurgmann offers reliable and safe solutions and service for power generation
equipment including turbine exhaust systems, HRSG boilers, high pressure crossover piping, pumps, agitators, compressors
and valves.
EagleBurgmann is an active member of the Expansion Joint Manufacturers
Association and Fluid Sealing Association,
working with other industry leaders to develop new technology that improves product design and materials for their users. As
part of the EagleBurgmann Group, more
than 6,000 employees contribute ideas, solutions and commitment to support customeagleburgmann-ej.com
ers worldwide.
eagleburgmann.com
EagleBurgmann Field Service Team supports its customers in power generation and
refining with turnkey services including inspections, installation and emergency support
Expansion joints with ASME B16.47 Series B flanges

Proco Products explains two ways to accommodate ASME B16.47 Series B flange drilling
when specifying rubber expansion joints
iping system designers: Have you

ever come across the need to supply rubber expansion joints/control units
in a piping system where the flanges have
ASME B16.47 Series B drilling? asks Proco
Products. If so, you will know that the
conventional control rod setup can be chal-
lenging, since the attachment area for a

traditional triangular control rod plate
is greatly reduced. This is because with
Series B drilling the bolt circle for the flange
is closer to the O.D. of the pipe than it is for
Series A drilling, Proco explains.
For example, say a designer has an application for a 30 in. I.D. X 24 in. OAL triplearch rubber expansion joint, where one end
has ASME B16.47 Series A drilling and the
other end has ASME B16.47 Series B drilling. Control rods are used in this example
as the piping system is unrestrained.
For ASME B16.47 Series B drilling, the
best rubber expansion joint design is an
interior tie rod type. This uses a thicker
ring/rod plate to connect the expansion
joint to the adjacent mating flange, while
connecting rods control the thrust loads
and movement of the expansion joint under
pressure. This design eliminates the compli(Left) Interior tie rod rubber
expansion joint design for ASME
B16.47 Series B flange connection
90
www.powermag.com
cation of a traditional control rod setup on

the back side of the mating flange, where
clearance of the I.D. of the control rod plate
aligning with the mating flange holes becomes difficult (illustration, left).
The only other option when dealing with
ASME B16.47 is a control rod setup with
thick fabricated split flange plates, so that
the resultant thrust loads from the rubber
expansion joints are evenly distributed to
every bolt hole (photo, below). However,
the interior tie rod configuration is prewww.procoproducts.com
ferred.
Exterior control unit design
POWER April 2016
POWER is the leading source for power

generation news, technology, and analysis
used by more than 65,000 plant managers,
engineers, technicians, and those who
support the power industry.
POWER covers the industry across multiple channels:
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25967
REPLACE TROUBLESOME MECHANICAL SWITCHES WITH

PROVEN TECHNOLOGY AND REDUCE COST, INSTALLATION
AND DOWN TIME.
The GO Switch 7J is a dry contact proximity sensor with an integral
terminal block that allows termination directly to the sensor. Easy
installation and dependability provides no need for adjustment or
maintenance. The compact design gives the user the ability to install
the sensor in areas with space constraints or where precision sensing
is required (short stroking valves). The product is available with NEC
and IEC hazardous area classifications with imperial or metric threads.
All GO Switches are engineered to meet harsh environment
applications while offering the highest reliability. This model is
designed to operate in the following process industries:
Oil and Gas
Chemical and Petrochemical
Power Generation
Pulp and Paper
Mining
Food and Beverage
www.topworx.com
READER SERVICE NUMBER 41
DEPENDABLE AND ENERGY EFFICIENT DIRECT

STEAM INJECTION HEATERS
The power industry demands reliable water heating
equipment offering precise temperature control. Pick direct
steam injection heaters satisfy both requirements. Picks
proven, robust design provides continuous service with
minimal maintenance. Discharge temperature is held
to extremely close tolerance within 1C or less while
providing rapid yet controlled response to changing process
conditions.
Pick steam injection heaters provide 100% heat transfer
efficiency eliminating flash and heat losses inherent with
indirect exchangers. All this, combined with an unlimited
supply of hot water, the widest operating range of any steam
injection heater, and low water pressure drop makes Pick
Heaters the right choice.
www.pickheaters.com
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POWER April 2016
FLAMELESS EXPLOSION VENTING FOR GAS-FUELLED

ENGINES
An incorrectly functioning gas-fuelled engine can allow a flammable
mixture of gas and oxygen to occur in the exhaust system. In the
worst case scenario, this could ignite and cause an explosion not
only damaging the engine and lead to unpredictable long breakdown.
REMBE has used its many years of experience in explosion safety to
develop a system specifically for protecting gas-fuelled engines.
It reduces downtimes to a minimum and thus increases power plant
availability.
Q-Rohr DFE permits flameless explosion venting in the generator
building without the need for costly and complex venting ducts. If an
explosion occurs, neither flames nor a pressure wave emerge from the
vessel. Other areas of the plant and employees working in the building
have the best possible protection. Normal operation of the power
plant can recommence very quickly after an explosion occurs and the
energy supply is secure.
www.rembe.com/products/explosion-safety/flameless-venting/q-rohrrdfe-onshore/
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flexible borescopes can also be connected to our Luxxor Portable
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April 2016 POWER
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93
For more info, visit:

www.naes.com/
careers
For more info, visit:
www.naes.com/
careers
POWER PROFESSIONALS
Opportunities in Operations and Maintenance,

Project
Engineering
andoperator
ProjectofManagement,
As
the largest
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Business
andcome
Project
in the industry,
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viewed as an employer
First-line
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Send
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compensation packages, including
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(360) 260-0979 l (360)

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www.powerindustrycareers.com

As the largest independent operator of power facilities in

the industry, weve come to be viewed as an employer of
choice. As such, we strive to attract and retain employees
of choice by offering highly competitive compensation
packages, including an education assistance program
that encourages our people to grow along with the
company. visit: www.naes.com/careers
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ues
Senior
Electrical
Engineer
As the largest independent operator of power facilities in

the industry, weve come to be viewed as an employer of
choice.
As such,
we strive to attract
retain
National
Security
Technologies,
LLCand(NSTec),
a prime contractor to the U.S. Department of
employees of choice by offering highly competitive
Energys
National Nuclear Security Administration, has an immediate opening for a Senior
compensation packages, including an education
Electrical Engineer. Work location is at the Nevada National Security Site located 65 miles
assistance program that encourages our people to grow
north of Las Vegas, NV. U.S. Citizenship required. No dual citizens.
along with the company.
eoe
Successful candidate will be responsible for the transmission and distribution design,
protection, and control functions at the Nevada National Security Site.
Primary
responsibilities include design, specification, and application of electromechanical and
microprocessor-based protection and control equipment. Perform short circuit analysis
studies, relay
coordination studies, and protective and control devices assessment studies
using a strong knowledge of industry standards. Create and modify engineering design
drawings for
substation design, pole line distribution, and underground distribution; calculate
of
sag and tensions
conductors and associated system design for power distribution. A strong
knowledge of industry standards, recommended practices, and electric system planning and
For more
info,
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operations
issues
is necessary
to adequately fill this position. A solid familiarity with one-line
www.naes.com/
diagrams,
relay, metering and control schematics, and AC and DC wiring diagrams is also
careers
required.
Be able to calculate and test all relay settings and logic settings to ensure system
protection, verify current and voltage transformer ratio selection and relay setting logic for
As the largest independent
variousoperator
relay schemes.
Ability to model the power system with Electrocon Computer-Aided
of power facilities in the
Protection
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Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition
retain employees of choice
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competitive compensation packages, including an
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This position
direction to department
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grow along technical
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coordinates engineering construction projects and technical studies, documents system
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of new developments and technology, maintains a system health report, monitors projects,
and recommends changes to improve operating efficiency. Participate in and embrace
NSTec environment, safety, health, and quality initiatives.
Successful candidate must possess a Bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering, Electrical

Proposal
Power Systems Engineering, or related calculus-based Science, Technology, Engineering, and
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POWER April 2016
ADVERTISERS INDEX
Enter reader service numbers on the FREE Product Information Source card in this issue.
Page
Reader
Service
Number
AMEC Foster Wheeler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 . . . . . . . .23
Reader
Service
Page Number
Magnetrol. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 . . . . . . . .11
www.amecfw.com
ASME
www.magnetrol.com
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 . . . . . . . .30
MD&A
www.go.asme.org/powerenergy
AUMA
www.mdaturbines.com
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 . . . . . . . .26
Megger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 . . . . . . . .25
www.auma.com
www.megger.com
A.W. Chesterton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 . . . . . . . .13
Membrana . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 . . . . . . . .10
www.chesterton.com
CB&I
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 . . . . . . . .31
www.liquicel.com
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 . . . . . . . .20
Mitsubishi Power Systems. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 . . . . . . . .22
www.cbi.com
www.mpshq.com
Check-All Valve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 . . . . . . . .34

NuScale Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 . . . . . . . . 4
www.checkall.com
www.nuscalepower.com
CIRCOR
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 . . . . . . . .21
Orion Instruments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 . . . . . . . .27
www.circorenergy.com
www.orioninstruments.com
Cleaver-Brooks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 . . . . . . . .24
Pick Heaters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 . . . . . . . .42
www.cleaverbrooks.com/engineered
www.pickheaters.com
Emerson Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 . . . . . . . .41

Power Engineers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cover 4 . . . . .45
www.topworx.com
www.powereng.com
Enercon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 . . . . . . . .16
Process Barron . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 . . . . . . . . 6
www.enercon.com
www.processbarron.com
Fairbanks Morse Engine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 . . . . . . . .28

Proco Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 . . . . . . . .33
www.fairbanksmorse.com
www.procoproducts.com
Fluke Corporation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 . . . . . . . .34

Rembe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 . . . . . . . .43
www.fluke.com
www.rembe.us
Fluor Corp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 . . . . . . . . 8
Rentech. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cover 2 . . . . . 1
www.fluor.com
www.rentechboilers.com
General Rubber . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 . . . . . . . .39

Safway Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 . . . . . . . .29
www.general-rubber.com
www.safway.com
Gradient Lens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 . . . . . . . .44

Siemens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 . . . . . . . . 3
www.gradientlens.com
www.siemens.com/gasturbines
Hilliard Corporation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 . . . . . . . .36

Siemens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 . . . . . . . .17
www.hilliardcorp.com
www.siemens.com/communications-for-electric-power
Indeck Power Equipment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 . . . . . . . .18

Sulzer Turbo. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 . . . . . . . .19
www.indeck.com
www.sulzer.com
Kalenborn Abresist Corporation.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 . . . . . . . .12

TerraSource Global . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 . . . . . . . . 9
www.abresist.com
www.terrasource.com
Kiewit Power. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 . . . . . . . . 2
Triangle Fluid Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 . . . . . . . .40
www.kiewit.com
www.trianglefluid.com
Lifting Gear Hire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 . . . . . . . .35

United Rentals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 . . . . . . . . 7
www.lgh-usa.com
www.unitedrentals.com
Lubrizol/Corzan Industrial Systems... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 . . . . . . . .14

Winsted . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 . . . . . . . .37
www.corzancpvc.com
www.winsted.com
Magaldi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 . . . . . . . .15
www.magaldi.com
Young & Franklin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 . . . . . . . .32

www.yf.com
April 2016 POWER
www.powermag.com
99
COMMENTARY
Paul Bunje, PhD Alisa Ferguson
Radical Energy
Breakthroughs
Without the Risk
mong the greatest revolutions of the modern world is one

that most of us take for granted: electrification. When we
flip on the light switch, turn on the TV, or plug in our cell
phones, power is there, 99.99% of the time. But not long ago,
that wasnt the case. As late as the 1930s, nine out of 10 rural
homes in the U.S. did not have electricity.
The way we achieved electrification was through a combination of new technologies, continual improvements in engineering, and policy support that maximized reliability while
minimizing cost. The benefits of electrification have been enormous, but unintended consequenceschiefly, greenhouse gas
emissionshave inspired the need for innovation.
Today we find ourselves in a world where new values are taking hold, among them: sustainability, customer choice, and expanding access to energy in the developing world. Developing
an electric grid (and perhaps many smaller distributed grids)
consistent with these values will require new technologies, new
ways of thinking, and new regulatory frameworks.
Prizes De-Risk New Technology

For much of the utility industry, new typically means one
thing: risk. But what if we could turn a high-risk challenge into
a low-risk opportunityand in doing so, offer a future where the
unintended consequences of the energy system are minimized
while the core benefits are maintained? Doing so might be easier
than you think.
One way were doing this is through the $20 million NRG COSIA
Carbon XPRIZE, a four-year competition that challenges anyone
from anywhere in the world to develop innovative approaches for
converting CO2 emissions into valuable products. The teams that
convert the most CO2 from a working power plant into products
that have the highest value will share in the $20 million prize.
Some people think prizes are a new idea. Thats only true if
your idea of new is 300 years old. From the 1714 prize to create
a system for determining a ships longitude, to Napoleons 1795
cash prize for a new method to preserve food during battle, and
the 1919 prize for the first nonstop trans-Atlantic flight (won by
Charles Lindbergh), prizes have been de-risking innovation for
centuries. In fact, prizes are an elegant tool with a long history
and a clear record of success.
In traditional R&D, investors provide money up front and, as
we like to say, pray for success. Conversely, in a prize model,
teams must demonstrate performance before the prize is awarded, and hence prizes pay for success.
Prizes typically leverage investment totaling 10 times the amount
of the purse, and they incentivize teams to push the boundaries of
performance as they try to win. As a result, a much larger number
of players bear the risk of searching for a breakthrough, and the
chances of identifying a solution increase exponentially.
Prizes also serve as a platform for engaging a broad commu-
100
nity, including new players from unexpected places. We regularly

see competitors become collaborators, sharing both ideas and
resources in pursuit of the best solutions. And we see industry
skeptics become championsand customersfor new technologies developed through competitions.
These are just a few of the reasons why prizes are increasingly being offered by a variety of organizations, from innovative
corporations like Google and Netflix, to government and educational institutions like the Department of Energy, Georgetown
University, and the Swiss nonprofit La Fondation Bundi.
Power Generation Partners

Even with prizes, new energy technologies can fall into the Valley of Death without innovative partnerships.
In the tech sector, new software or apps can be created, released, and distributed in a matter of monthsand any bugs
fixed later. Conversely, energy innovators typically need access
to existing infrastructure in order to prove their technologies will
be viable in the real world and attract the investment necessary
to achieve commercial scale. However, utilities and other industry players are often legitimately concerned about connecting
something new and unproven to a power plant or grid system.
As we developed the Carbon XPRIZE, this was a critical barrier
we knew we needed to address. Fortunately, we found leaders
who were willing to think creatively about the problem.
Two of our partners (both of which are in regions better known
for fossil fuels than Silicon Valleystyle innovation) have committed to build testing and commercialization centers at existing power plants where teams competing for the prize can try
new things, have a safe space to fail, and ultimately demonstrate
successful solutions. In return, the utility hosts are positioned
to get a first-hand look at some of the best emerging technologies, not to mention a potential market advantage in scaling and
adopting new solutions to address CO2 emissions. Both partners
figured out ways to enable innovation without running afoul of
their business models or existing regulations.
Change is always hard. As humans, were hard-wired to continue doing things the way theyve always been done. But just
because change is difficult, it doesnt have to be risky.
To successfully transition to a 21st century energy system,
tools that de-risk opportunities and leverage diverse investment
will be absolutely essential. But these tools can also create competitive advantage for power generators and innovators alike, no
matter what energy revolution is to come.
Dr. Paul Bunje is principal and senior scientist at XPRIZE
Foundation (xprize.org), where he leads Energy & Environment
prizes, including the $20M NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE (carbon.
xprize.org) and XPRIZEs Ocean Initiative. Alisa Ferguson
(alisaferguson.com) is a consultant with XPRIZE Foundation and
works with clients to accelerate clean energy deployment.
www.powermag.com
POWER April 2016
2 Days Addressing the Challenges Facing

Western Electric Power Markets
SAVE THE DATE

September 19 20, 2016
CAESARS PALACE LAS VEGAS, NEVADA
Mark your calendars for this two day
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Transmission
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Water
www.westernpowersummit.com
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April 2016 Vol. 160 No.

Vol. 160 No. 4 April 2016

O&M Goes High-Tech

Coastal Plant Resilience

HARNESS THE POWER

The industry leader in Heat Recovery Steam Generators for gas

HEAT RECOVERY STEAM GENERATORS

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Established 1882 Vol. 160 No. 4

This climbing robot from International

LEGAL & REGULATORY

By Nicholas A. Giannasca, Davis Wright Tremaine

COVER FOCUS: OPERATIONS & MAINTENANCE

The capabilities of unmanned aircraft systems (commonly called drones)

Solar PV O&M Best Practices in a Rapidly Changing Market

Compared to thermal power facilities, solar photovoltaic (PV) plants require

Weighing Costs and Benefits in Hydropower Maintenance and

New Plant Design Options Expand Geothermal Power Operations

From hybrid technology to life-extension practices to flexible operation, todays

April 2016 POWER

Risk Management: Using Resilience Engineering to Develop a More

Maintenance outages occur with predictable frequency, but your preparations

Coastal sites are subject to an extra set of weather-related challenges. Heres

Entergy Sheds Uneconomic Merchant Nuclear Plants to Focus on

Even at a moment when emissions-free nuclear power should be in favor,

By Dr. Paul Bunje, XPRIZE Foundation, and Alisa Ferguson, consultant

ONLINE EXCLUSIVES FROM POWERMAG.COM

POWER April 2016

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A name you can trust.

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When Technology Tails Wag

Technologys Role in Energy

Fracked natural gas and oil have upended

Of Climate Change and Fossil Fuels

General Electric Chairman and CEO Jeffrey

From where I sit (in the cheap seats),

Faith Must Lead to Action

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2016 NuScale Power, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

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POWER April 2016

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