Powermag200711 DL

BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY FOR THE GLOBAL GENERATION INDUSTRY
Vol. 151 No. 11 November 2007 www.powermag.com

Top Plants:
Four remodeled nuclear plants
Upgrade BWR recirc pumps
with adjustable-speed drives
Digital plant data networks
Successful nuclear
I&C upgrade projects
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001 TOC.indd cvr2 11/5/07 4:13:35 PM
November 2007
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POWER www.powermag.com 1
www.powermag.com
Established 1882 Vol. 151 No. 11 November 2007
On the cover
Omaha Public Power District replaced Fort
Calhoun Nuclear Generating Stations two
steam generators, reactor vessel head, and
coolant system pressurizer in perhaps the
most complex plant upgrade project in the
history of the industry.
DEPARTMENTS
4 SPEAKING OF POWER
6 GLOBAL MONITOR
6 NRG applies for first COL
8 TVA green-lights Watts Bar 2
8 Southern Co. and Florida muni
launch IGCC project
10 UK approves wave energy hub
12 New JerseyNew York HV system
launched
12 Membrane strips CO
2
from methane
faster
14 POWER digest
18 FOCUS ON O&M
18 The NERC auditors are coming
18 Winning encore for on-line
pH monitoring
24 Using balloons as temporary
barriers
25 How data logging can cut
power bills
28 LEGAL & REGULATORY
84 RETROSPECTIVE
86 NEW PRODUCTS
96 COMMENTARY
COVER STORY: NUCLEAR TOP PLANTS
30 Browns Ferry Nuclear Power Plant, Alabama
Its probably the most written-about nuke in history, but thats because its story is in
many ways the story of U.S. nuclear power generation. After a massive upgrade and
restart, Browns Ferry begins yet another chapter.
36 Comanche Peak Steam Electric Station, Texas
This modernization project shattered the record for fastest replacement of aging
components at a nuclear power plant. Doing so required creative methods to recruit
and retain the required craftsmen.
40 Fermi 2 Power Plant, Michigan
Some outside-the-concrete-box thinking led to a unique and previously untested one-
piece installation approach to replacing a pair of moisture separator reheaters that
accomplished this first-ever task under time and with impressive financial results.
46 Fort Calhoun Nuclear Generating Station, Nebraska
If nuclear renovation were an Olympic event, this plant would win for undertaking the
routine with the highest degree of difficulty.
INDUSTRY TRENDS
52 Map of U.S. nuclear power plants
SPECIAL REPORTS
PLANT INFRASTRUCTURE
54 Plantwide data networks leverage digital technology to the max
Its high time for the power generation industry to recognize that digital control and
communications systems deserve to be linked by a plantwide data network.
NUCLEAR UPGRADES
60 Upgrade your BWR recirc pumps with adjustable-speed drives
Exelon Nuclear details the operational and design considerations that led to choos-
ing the appropriate ASD for upgrading the recirculation pump drive system at its fleet
of boiling water reactors.
68 Defined scope, experienced team essential to nuclear I&C upgrade projects
An instrumentation and controls contractor offers case studies in rebuttal of our
January story on the trials and shortcomings of I&C upgrade projects. As usual, the
lesson is that proper planning prevents poor performance.
FEATURES
INSTRUMENTATION
72 Accurately measure the dynamic response of pressure instruments
Measuring the dynamic response of nuclear power plant pressure sensors and their
associated sensing lines has been a challenge, but the noise analysis technique has
proven to be simple and effective. Tests using the technique can even be run without
interrupting the demand for high nuclear plant capacity factors.
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
80 Milestones on the road to commercial operation
A carefully negotiated EPC contract balances risks for the contractor and the plant
owner. Understand the elements of a good contract and its milestones to avoid dis-
putes and their resolution.
001 TOC.indd 1 11/5/07 4:13:37 PM
www.powermag.com POWER
|
November 2007 2
Now incorporating and
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November 2007 4
SPEAKING OF POWER
Do the math
T
he eyes of Texasand the rest of the worldare upon NRG
Energy after its September application for licenses for two
new reactors at South Texas Project (see p. 6). The filing
was the first of its kind in nearly three decades and the first of
up to 30 like it expected over the next few years. However, most
industry observersincluding yours trulyexpected a nuclear
utility to be first out of the gate, not a company that emerged
from bankruptcy less than four years ago.
How will NRG stand up under the heightened scrutiny? It de-
pends on how well it solves a certain equation.
Perception is reality
Peter Sandman (www.psandman.com) was a professor of jour-
nalism specializing in media coverage of environmental issues
in March 1979, when Three Mile Island Unit 2 suffered a par-
tial meltdown, ending orders for new reactors in the U.S. The
Columbia Journalism Review asked him to go to the site and
cover the coverage of the TMI disaster. Years later, Sand-
man wrote a series of articles based on his findings there and
elsewhere, recommending ways for nuclear utilities to improve
their public communications during crises. Its my observation
that his advice applies equally well to utilities looking to in-
vest billions in advanced nuclear units.
In the late 1980s, Sandman coined the formula Risk = Hazard
+ Outrage in an effort to quantify the public fear caused by
a nuclear power mishap. For example, although there was no
chance that the molten core of TMI Unit 2 would breach the
containment below and create a real public hazard, the publics
outragefanned by poor communications and exacerbated by
release of the movie The China Syndrome just 12 days earlier
heightened the perceived risk of such an event. Conversely, the
full meltdown of Chernobyl Unit 4 in Ukraine seven years later
was extremely hazardous, yet the outrage it generated in the
U.S. paled in comparison.
Sandmans formula can be likened to the International Nuclear
Event Scale developed by the International Atomic Energy Agency
in 1990 to standardize reporting of nuclear events to the public.
The scale runs from zero (an event with no safety significance) to
a Chernobyl-like seven. On this scale, TMI was a five. A 1980 level-
four accident in France passed without notice in the U.S., while
the corrosion discovered at the Davis-Besse nuclear station in
2002 rated a threethough its outrage factor was much higher.
Equation proofs
Sandmans equation makes clear that risk can be minimized only
when hazard and outrage are both at a minimum. Utilities consid-
ering adding new nuclear resources would be wise to heed a few
of the PR pointers Sandman developed in the wake of TMI. Theyre
still fresh, and applicable to any company with a public image.
Pay attention to communication. Few citizens understand nu-
clear power technology. Yet the general publics voice of dissent
(informed or not) can bring a project to a jarring halt. Free and
open communication channels are vital to discussions of a new
nuclear plant. The public must feel it is part of the conversation,
and nay-sayers cannot be ignored.
Metropolitan Edisons bungling of press relations during the
TMI accident only increased the outrage factor. Then-Pennsylvania
Governor Dick Thornburgh ordered an evacuation of school children
near the plant even though MetEd maintained that radiation levels
did not justify it. MetEd was right, but for the wrong reason.
Err on the side of pessimism. After MetEds initial public pro-
nouncement minimized the importance of the event, the compa-
nys PR people later had to admit that, it is worse than we first
thought. It would have been better had they been able to say,
it is better than we first thought.
For todays utilities, the lesson here is that rosy predictions of
the cost, schedule, and community impact of a proposed plant
can come back to haunt you. Experienced nuclear utilities with a
track record of safe and efficient operations begin the permitting
process with lots of public credibility. Miss that first milestone or
raise the cost estimate before breaking ground, and you squan-
der much or all of that cred.
Dont lie, and dont tell half-truths. Making statements that
are technically accurate but designed to mislead is still lying. At
the height of the TMI crisis, MetEd issued a press release that
said the plant was cooling according to design. Translation:
The safety margins and plant automation are working correctly,
even though the plant is self-destructing.
Another case in point: This July, Tokyo Electric Power Co.
found several drums of very low-level radioactive waste spilled
on the basement floor of its huge Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant fol-
lowing a powerful earthquake. Reporters flogged that non-story
for weeks, but who can blame them? They remembered that in
1999 the utility admitted that it had falsified safety records for
years and had covered up an incident in which operators lost
control of a reactor.
New math
How does NRG rate so far on Sandmans criteria? Picking the
operator of South Texas Project as its partner was a plus, and se-
lecting the already-approved advanced boiling water reactor de-
sign was inspired. David Crane, NRGs CEO, says his firm arranged
for Toshiba to build the new reactors because the Japanese
have built four of [them] already, on time and on budget. NRG
also has mitigated cost and completion risk by making Hitachi
and Toshiba equity participants in the project. Doing so may al-
low NRG to tap Japanese government guarantees as well as those
offered by the U.S. Department of Energy.
NRGs chutzpah, backed by the nuclear expertise of Japan
Inc., might be just whats needed to kick off Americas second
act on the worlds nuclear power stage. Just dont forget your
math lessons in the days ahead.
Dr. Robert Peltier, PE
Editor-in-Chief
004 SOP.indd 4 11/5/07 4:14:22 PM
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November 2007 6
GLOBAL MONITOR
GLOBAL MONI TOR GLOBAL MONI TOR GLOBAL MONI TOR GLOBAL MONI TOR GLOBAL MONI TOR GLOBAL MONI TOR GLOBAL MONI TOR GLOBAL MONI TOR GLOBAL MONI TOR GLOBAL MONI TOR GLOBAL MONI TOR GLOBAL MONI TOR GLOBAL MONI TOR GLOBAL MONI TOR GLOBAL MONI TOR GLOBAL MONI TOR GLOBAL MONI TOR GLOBAL MONI TOR GLOBAL MONI TOR GLOBAL MONI TOR
NRG applies for first COL
This September, NRG Energy Inc. and
South Texas Project Nuclear Operating Co.
filed the first-ever combined construction
and operating license (COL) application
with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Com-
mission (NRC). The two firms would like
to build two new 1,350-MW nuclear units
on the grounds of the South Texas Project
(STP) nuclear power station (Figure 1) and
bring them on-line in 2014 and 2015.
The submittal was the first application
for a license for a new U.S. nuclear unit
in 29 years.
This July, Constellation Energy Group
and UniStar Nucleara consortium of
Constellation, the French reactor vendor
Areva, and the French utility lectricit de
Francefiled a partial COL application for
a potential third reactor at Constellations
two-unit Calvert Cliffs nuclear station on
Chesapeake Bay. But the submission cov-
ered environmental issues only. Under NRC
rules, the consortium must file the rest of
the application for Calvert Cliffs within six
months. Since July, Constellation/Unistar
has supplemented the original application
twice, but has not yet completed it.
The new units in Texasto be called
STP 3 and 4are being developed as part
of an NRG repowering initiative to add
about 10,000 MW of clean and efficient
capacity to its 23,000-MW North American
portfolio. The initiatives goals are to bet-
ter leverage NRGs existing infrastructure,
to diversify its fuel mix while reducing its
dependence on foreign sources, and to
implement technologies that reduce the
companys carbon footprint.
STP Nuclear Operating Co., which op-
erates Units 1 and 2, would operate STP
3 and STP 4 as well. Units 1 and 2 are
owned by NRG Energy (44%), CPS Energy
(40%), and Austin Energy (16%).
The 12,220-acre STP site in Matagorda
County, Texas, is considered one of the
best sites in America for nuclear expan-
sion. Its 7,000-acre cooling reservoir was
sized to serve four units. The two new
units would be built adjacent to Units 1
and 2 (Figure 2).
NRG has chosen advanced boiling wa-
ter reactor (ABWR) technology developed
by General Electric Co. for the new units
because it combines the best features of
current BWR designs with enhancements
that improve safety, performance, and
longevity. ABWR technology is certified
by the NRC and has impressive construc-
tion and operational track records, includ-
ing the shortest time to build a reactor
and the completion of many units within
their budget.
Four ABWR units are already on-line
in Japan, and another three are under
construction in Taiwan and Japan. Tokyo
Electric Power Co., which has more than a
decade of experience using the technol-
ogy, said it will share its expertise to sup-
port STPs planned expansion.
POWER Contributing Editor Tim Hurst
explored the ABWR fast-track construc-
tion methods employed by Hitachi in this
magazines May 2007 issue. In Transfer
ABWR construction techniques to U.S.
shores, Hurst wrote that the construc-
tion practices honed in Japan arent just
impressive; theyre also eminently suit-
able for the fleet of new units planned
for the U.S.
Because ABWR technology and con-
1. Room to grow. An aerial view of the sprawling South Texas Project nuclear plant site.
Courtesy: South Texas Project
2. Bigger and still CO
2
-free. What the site would look like after the addition of Units 3
and 4, in the foreground. Courtesy: South Texas Project
006 GM.indd 6 11/5/07 4:15:23 PM
006 GM.indd 7 11/5/07 4:15:43 PM
POWER
|
November 2007 8
GLOBAL MONITOR
struction techniques are well-understood,
NRGs choice seems an excellent one for
the first nuclear unit to be built in the
U.S. in a generation. We have chosen
NRC-certified, operationally proven tech-
nology and the best possible, most expe-
rienced team to build STP 3 and 4, said
David Crane, NRGs president and CEO. We
expect to build these facilities on time,
on budget, and to the exacting standards
that will guarantee excellence in safe and
reliable nuclear operations.
It took NRG a little over one year to
follow up its letter of intent to build STP
3 and STP 4 with the COL application. STP
Nuclear Operating Co. and a contracting
team led by a joint venture of Hitachi and
GE, and including Bechtel Power Corp.,
helped prepare the latest submittal.
The filing of the COL application kicked
off an NRC internal process for formally
accepting it that will likely take two
months. After that, another agency pro-
cess of detailed review will begin and
last up to 42 months. It will include staff
discovery, site visits, company responses,
public hearings, and the filing of environ-
mental impact statements.
If all goes well, NRG could receive li-
censes for STP 3 and 4 and begin con-
struction in 2010. If not, the company
could qualify for $1 billion ($500 million
per reactor) in standby support, or in-
surance against regulatory delays, includ-
ed in the Energy Policy Act of 2005.
TVA green-lights
Watts Bar 2
Bechtel Power Corp. has announced that
it has been chosen by Tennessee Valley
Authority (TVA) to lead the effort to com-
plete Unit 2 at the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant
(Figure 3) in Spring City, Tenn. Work on
the original 1,200-MW unit was stopped
in 1985 when it was two-thirds complete.
The new, $2.5 billion project will take
five years to finish and bring Unit 2 up to
all contemporary engineering and safety
standards.
TVA, the nations largest public power
provider, selected Bechtel after a com-
prehensive competitive bidding process.
Bechtel recently contributed engineer-
ing, start-up, and other technical servic-
es to the successful May 2007 restart of
TVAs Browns Ferry Unit 1 (see p. 30), the
first nuclear unit to come on-line in the
U.S. in more than a decade (since Watts
Bar Unit 1 in 1996). The contractor also
worked for TVA on the restart of Browns
Ferry Units 2 and 3 in the 1990s, and re-
placed the steam generators of Watts Bar
1 and of TVAs Sequoyah Nuclear Plant,
Unit 1.
We are honored to be selected by TVA
for this historic assignment, said Jim
Reinsch, president of Bechtels nuclear
power business. This cost-effective
project will provide clean, safe, and reli-
able power for TVAs customers and dem-
onstrate the importance of nuclear power
as a contributor to meeting Americas en-
ergy needs in the coming decades.
Southern Co. and Florida
muni launch IGCC project
With some hefty financial assistance from
the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE),
Southern Company and the Orlando (Flor-
ida) Utilities Commission have become
the first U.S. utilities to begin building a
power plant based on an advanced inte-
grated gasification combined-cycle (IGCC)
technology.
The DOE is subsidizing the project,
in Orlando, under its Clean Coal Power
Initiative to demonstrate new clean coal
combustion technologies such as IGCC.
Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman joined
David RatcliffeSoutherns chairman,
president, and CEOand Orlando offi-
cials at the groundbreaking of the 285-
MW coal gasification plant, to be built
on the grounds of the Orlando Utilities
Commissions Stanton Energy Center
(Figure 4).
The plant will be powered by Transport
Integrated Gasification (TRIG) technology
developed by Southern at its Power Sys-
tems Development Facility in Wilsonville,
Ala., in partnership with the DOE and the
engineering contractor KBR Inc. According
to Southern, TRIG is a superior, proven,
and practical method of gasifying coal to
produce power, chemicals, and transporta-
tion fuels with less environmental impact
than conventional IGCC technologies. The
company says it can easily handle the
high-moisture, high-ash coals that ac-
count for more than half of the worlds
reserves of the fuel.
The Orlando plant also is expected to
produce 20% to 25% less CO
2
than a typi-
cal coal-fired power plant. However, cur-
rent plans for the project do not call for
capturing any carbon released by its coal
combustion.
The gasification project is valued at
$844 million, including the costs of per-
mitting, design, construction, and start-
up, and four and a half years of O&M and
evaluation expenses. The DOE will con-
tribute $294 million of that total, with
Southern Company and Orlandos muni
funding the remainder. Commercial opera-
tion is scheduled for June 2010.
3. Bechtel inside. Watts Bar, TVAs third
nuclear plant, is on the shore of Chickamauga
Reservoir in Sprint City, Tenn. Major construc-
tion began in 1973, and the plant began com-
mercial operation on May 27, 1996. Courtesy:
Tennessee Valley Authority
Proposed gasification project
Planned facility expansions
Six-cell
cooling tower
Coal conveyor
Gasifier structure
285-MW combined-cycle unit
Gas cleanup processes
and rotating equipment
Existing
Stanton Unit A
4. New breed. Southern Company and the Orlando Utilities Commission have broken
ground on the first next-generation IGCC plant in the U.S. It will be built on the grounds of the
latters Stanton Energy Center. Courtesy: Southern Company
006 GM.indd 8 11/5/07 4:15:43 PM
006 GM.indd 9 11/5/07 4:15:53 PM
POWER
|
November 2007 10
GLOBAL MONITOR
UK approves
wave energy hub
The British government has approved
construction of the most ambitious ocean
energy facility proposed to datethe $56
million Wave Hub, a deep-sea electricity
socket that will sit on the seabed 10
miles off the Cornish coast and link as
many as 30 wave energy machines to the
UK electricity grid.
The project, to be located in waters
about 150 feet deep, will enable wave
energy developers to plug in and test
the efficiency and durability of their ma-
chines, which convert the kinetic energy
of waves to electricity.
Plans call for the Wave Hub (Fig-
ure 5) to be connected to the UK grid
by a 15-mile undersea cable that will
come ashore at a substation at Hayle, in
southwest England. All told, Wave Hub
could deliver up to 20 MW of electricity,
enough power to meet 3% of Cornwalls
electricity needs, according to the South
West of England Regional Development
Agency (Southwest RDA), the projects
main backer.
Despite broad political support in Brit-
ain for Wave Hub as a clean energy in-
novation, the project encountered some
rough waters in the form of protests by
local surfers that the deployment of its
wave machines, which ride on the sur-
face, might flatten out swells. However, a
noted surfers group, Surfers Against Sew-
age, endorsed the project after scientists
concluded that that was unlikely.
Four wave energy developers have
been chosen for the initial deployment
of Wave Hub: Oceanlinx, Ocean Power
Technologies Ltd., Fred Olsen Ltd., and
WestWave. The last is a consortium led
by E.ON AG and Ocean Prospect Ltd. that
would use the Pelamis technology of
Ocean Power Delivery Ltd. The Wave Hub
project will cover an area measuring 2.5
miles by 1 mile; each early developer will
be given a 5-to-10-year lease for a space
in that area.
Ocean Power Delivery and Ocean Power
Technologies are two of the early lead-
ers in the wave energy field. The former
company won the worlds first contract to
develop a commercial wave power farm by
convincing a consortium led by Enersis to
let it install 31 Pelamis machines off the
coast of Portugal.
Meanwhile, Ocean Power Technologies
will be supplying its PowerBuoy technol-
ogy to a major wave power project off
the Oregon coast. This June, the com-
pany, which says it has a backlog of or-
ders worth $6.9 million, received a $1.7
million contract from the U.S. Navy to
provide an autonomous PowerBuoy in
connection with an ocean data gathering
system known as the Deep Water Acous-
tic Detection System.
However, wave energy developers still
5. Current from currents. The UK has
approved construction of this Wave Hub,
which will link up to 30 wave energy plants
expected to be built off the countrys south-
west coast. Courtesy: South West England
Wave Hub Project
006 GM.indd 10 11/5/07 4:15:53 PM
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006 GM.indd 11 11/5/07 4:16:04 PM
POWER
|
November 2007 12
GLOBAL MONITOR
face significant technical challenges.
Among them are proving that their ma-
chines can withstand long periods of sub-
mersion in the harsh ocean environment
and maintain their output despite vari-
able wave conditions.
The British government will subsidize
the offshore Cornish project to the tune
of $9 million. Southwest RDA, which
has already spent more than $4 million
on permitting, has approved $43.4 mil-
lion for Wave Hub, with half of that sum
expected to come from the European
Regional Development Fund.
New JerseyNew York
HV system launched
At the formal dedication of the Neptune
Regional Transmission System this sum-
mer, officials of the Long Island Power
Authority (LIPA) said that the first 100
days of operating the new, 65-mile un-
dersea and underground transmission
link between the island and New Jersey
saved it an estimated $20 million. They
expect the $600 million system to deliver
more than $1 billion in net benefits to
LIPA and its 1.1 million customers over
the next 20 years.
The system (www.neptunerts.com)
currently the largest underwater HVDC
(high-voltage direct current) system in
Americagives LIPA access to 660 MW of
reliable, competitively priced electricity
from the 13-state PJM energy grid, one of
the most diverse wholesale power markets
in the U.S.
After taking and culling competitive
bids from prospective suppliers in 2004,
LIPA began building two converter sta-
tions and the 65-mile cable in July 2005.
The transmission system commenced
operations this June, ahead of schedule
and within budget. More than 50 miles of
the cable are buried beneath the Raritan
River, New York Harbor, and the Atlantic
Ocean. The cable brings power from Sayre-
ville, New Jersey, to Long Island (which is
chronically short of generating capacity),
where it comes ashore near Jones Beach
(Figure 6).
The Neptune project is an example of
how this type of HVDC technology can
bring much-needed electric power and
transmission infrastructure to densely
populated areas in a cost-effective and
environmentally friendly way, said Edward
M. Stern, president and CEO of Neptune
Regional Transmission System LLC. Many
American cities that face growing demand
for energy would be well-served by imple-
menting projects such as Neptune.
The Neptune cable is the first 500-kV
submarine cable to use mass-impreg-
nated, paper-insulated technology from
Prysmian Cables and Systems USA LLC
(www.prysmian.com) that makes it all
but invulnerable to external damage. Ac-
cording to Prysmian, the installation was
done using equipment it engineered to
have minimum environmental impact.
A converter station in New Jersey trans-
forms alternating current (AC) power to
direct current (DC) power for transmission
to Long Island. There, another converter
station (Figure 7) transforms the DC pow-
er back to AC form for distribution to LIPA
customers. The power can move in both
directions. Siemens Power Transmission
& Distribution Inc. designed, engineered,
built, and installed both converter sta-
tions and will operate them for the next
five years.
Neptune Regional Transmission System
LLCthe developer, owner, and operator
of the linkis responsible for its plan-
ning, permitting, financing, and construc-
tion. Affiliates of Energy Investors Funds
and Starwood Capital Group Global are the
principal equity investors in the firm.
Membrane strips CO
2

from methane faster
A modified plastic material promises much
more efficient separation of CO
2
from nat-
ural gas, according to scientists at The
University of Texas at Austin who have
analyzed its performance.
Like a sponge that only soaks up cer-
0 1.25 2.5 5
Project Neptune
Converter station
Existing substation
HVDC transmission line
U.S. Army Corps
of Engineers channel
N
6. Island-hopping. This 65-mile underground and undersea HVDC transmission line is
now bringing needed power from New Jersey to Long Island. Courtesy: Neptune Regional
Transmission System
7. AC/DC rules. A birds-eye view of the Long Island Power Authoritys Duffy Avenue con-
verter station, as of May 2007. Courtesy: Neptune Regional Transmission System
006 GM.indd 12 11/5/07 4:16:04 PM
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POWER
|
November 2007 14
GLOBAL MONITOR
tain chemicals, the new plastic lets CO
2
or
other small molecules pass through hour-
glass-shaped pores within it, while im-
peding natural gas (methane) movement
through them (Figure 8). The thermally
rearranged (TR) plastic appears to be four
times more efficient than conventional
membranes at separating carbon dioxide
using pores.
Dr. Ho Bum Park, a postdoctoral student
in the chemical engineering laboratory of
Professor Benny Freeman, found that TR
plastic membranes also work more quickly,
by permitting CO
2
to move through them
several hundred times faster than through
conventional membranes. As part of the
process, they also keep natural gas and
most other substances from traveling
through the pores, improving separation
efficiency.
If this material were used instead
of conventional cellulose acetate mem-
branes, processing plants would require
500 times less space to process natural
gas for use because of the membranes
more efficient separation capabilities, and
would lose less natural gas in their waste
products, said Freeman. He noted that,
pound for pound, natural gas contributes
much more to global warming than does
carbon dioxide.
If commercialized, the plastic could
also be used to isolate natural gas from
decomposing garbage, the focus of sev-
eral experimental projects nationally. The
TR plastic described in the current issue
of Science also could help recapture CO
2

being pumped into oil reservoirs in West
Texas and elsewhere to aid in extracting
residual oil.
Park initially engineered the membrane
while at Hanyang University in Korea.
As a research assistant, he investigated
whether plastics made of rings of carbon
and certain other elements would be effi-
cient separators of CO
2
from power plants
flue gases. Separation of the greenhouse
gas from other flue gases usually must be
done at temperatures high enough to de-
stroy plastic membranes.
Park not only found that the TR plastic
could handle temperatures above 600F,
but also that the heat transformed the
material into a membrane that breaks a
performance barrier thought to affect all
plastic membranes.
I didnt expect that the TR plastic
would work better than any other plastic
membranes because thermally stable plas-
tics usually have very low gas transport
rates through them, Park said. Every-
one had thought the performance barrier
for plastic membranes could not be sur-
passed.
Park said, These membranes also show
the ability to transport ions since they are
doped with acid molecules and therefore
could be developed as fuel cell mem-
branes. However, a lot of research still
needs to be done to understand gas and
ion transport through these membranes.
POWER digest
News items of interest to power industry
professionals.
Big run-of-river hydro project advanc-
es. In a big step forward for one of the
largest of a new breed of environmentally
sensitive hydroelectric plants, a small re-
newable energy company and GE Financial
Services have awarded a $500 million
fixed-price contract to Peter Kiewit Sons
Co. to build a 196-MW run-of-river hy-
dropower facility on two rivers in British
Columbia.
Officials of Vancouver-based Plutonic
Power Corp. said the engineering, pro-
curement, and construction contract
would help finalize financing for the
Toba-Montrose project, comprising two
power generating stations on the East
Toba River and Montrose Creek. At press
time, Plutonic said it expected to com-
plete the financing package from lenders
by the end of October 2007. The total cost
of the project, which includes a 90-mile
transmission line, is $660 million. Both
stations are expected to be operational by
the end of 2010.
The run-of-river hydro project is one
of the biggest launched to date. Unlike
traditional storage hydro facilities, run-
of-river plants do not require dams or
impoundments that block fish migration
or lead to silt buildup or other ecosystem
changes. Rather, the plants divert water
to riverside powerhouses that produce
electricity while minimally disrupting
river flow.
General Electric has pledged to invest
up to $110 million to acquire a 49% eq-
uity stake and a 60% economic interest
in the Toba-Montrose project, 118 miles
northwest of Vancouver.
Plutonic has proposed an ambitious
plan to harness British Columbias ample
hydropower resources by building 34 run-
of-river plants with a total capacity of
1,700 MW.
AEP, MidAmerican look to build grids
nationwide. Expanding a partnership that
began in the booming Texas electric-
ity market, American Electric Power Co.
(AEP) and MidAmerican Energy Holdings
Co. have formed a joint venture to build
and own high-voltage transmission assets
in other states.
The 50-50 joint venture, Electric Trans-
mission America LLC (ETA), combines
AEPs expertise in power line construction
and operation with the deep pockets of
privately held MidAmerican, the energy
investment vehicle of Warren Buffetts
Berkshire Hathaway. This August, POWER
named MidAmerican Energys Walter Scott,
Jr. Energy Center Unit 4 its 2007 Plant of
the Year.
The two companies said they intend to
invest only in transmission projects that
cost at least $100 million. Candidates
will be chosen by a board that will in-
clude two representatives of Ohio-based
AEP and two from MidAmerican, which is
headquartered in Iowa.
The companies plan to launch their
first project during the first half of 2008,
with AEP acting as project manager to de-
velop and build the transmission lines and
facilities for ETA.
AEP deploying grid batteries to boost
reliability. In a move that it said will en-
hance reliability and facilitate wind farm
development, AEP said it plans to deploy
three large sodium-sulfur batteries as the
first step of an effort to add 1,000 MW of
advanced storage capacity to its huge
grid within 10 years.
AEP said two of the batteries will be
installed in West Virginia and Ohio, and
that it was working with wind power
8. Carbon traffic cop. A new polymer
membrane has pores that mimic those natu-
rally occurring within cell membranes. The
pores unique hourglass shape effectively
segregates gaseous molecules on the basis
of shape. The separation of carbon dioxide
(gray and red) from methane (gray and white)
is illustrated. Courtesy: Commonwealth Sci-
entific and Industrial Research Organization
006 GM.indd 14 11/5/07 4:16:14 PM
Torque Tube Displacer Problems?
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006 GM.indd 15 11/5/07 4:16:18 PM
POWER
|
November 2007 16
GLOBAL MONITOR
developers to identify a third location
within AEPs 11-state service territory.
Using batteries to store electricity helps
offset the intermittent nature of wind
generation.
The first two batteries each will have
a capacity of 2 MW. The one planned
for West Virginia will be installed near
Milton, to enhance local reliability and
support continued load growth. The mis-
sions of the Ohio battery, to be installed
near Findlay, Ohio, will be to improve
reliability, bolster weak sub-transmission
systems, and avoid equipment overload.
Japans NGK Insulators Ltd. and Tokyo
Electric Power Co. developed the batter-
ies, which will be delivered in the spring
of 2008. According to AEP, it will spend
$27 million to buy and install the three
batteries and their control systems.
AEP chairman, president, and CEO
Michael Morris said the company hopes
to have at least 25 MW of battery capac-
ity in place by the end of this decade. In
2006, AEP installed the first megawatt-
class sodium-sulfur battery on a U.S.
distribution system, at a substation near
Charleston, W.Va., operated by AEP sub-
sidiary Appalachian Power.
Barnwell radwaste disposal site to
close. In a move that will reduce the
nations already limited capacity for dis-
posing of low-level radioactive waste,
EnergySolutions LLC has announced it
will not seek to keep its Barnwell landfill
in South Carolina open to waste genera-
tors from all states after June 2008. The
decision reflects growing opposition to
radwaste storage by state lawmakers, as
well as a new controversy over groundwa-
ter contamination at Barnwell that has
drawn the concern of South Carolinas at-
torney general.
EnergySolutions officials said they will
not try to change a current South Carolina
law that requires Barnwell to stop accept-
ing deliveries of nuclear waste from states
other than South Carolina, Connecticut,
and New Jerseythe three members of
the Atlantic interstate compact for low-
level radioactive waste disposal.
Barnwells closing will leave most utili-
ties and other low-level radwaste genera-
tors only two commercial disposal options:
a facility in Clive, Utah (also operated by
EnergySolutions), and a landfill in Rich-
land, Wash., managed by a subsidiary of
American Ecology Corp. under the trade
name U.S. Ecology. The Washington site
only accepts deliveries of low-level rad-
waste from states belonging to the North-
west and Rocky Mountain waste disposal
compacts.
Barnwell, the nations oldest low-level
waste disposal site, began operation in
1971 and has since taken in about 28
million cubic feet of waste. The 235-acre
site is now 90% full. In recent years, envi-
ronmentalists have ratcheted up their op-
position to Barnwell, saying its disposal
practices do not meet modern standards,
as evidenced by the burial of some waste
in containers with holes in the bottom.
EnergySolutions officials said their de-
cision on Barnwell was largely dictated
by political realities in South Carolina. In
particular, they noted that the Agriculture
Committee in the South Carolina House of
Representatives voted 16-0 this April to
defeat a proposal that would have kept
Barnwell open to all states for another 15
years. The unanimous vote was somewhat
surprising because the state government
has typically received more than $10 mil-
lion annually from Barnwell to support
education programsrevenues that will
doubtless be curtailed by the restriction
of access to the landfill.
We Energies transfers ownership of
Point Beach Nuclear Plant to FPL Energy.
On October 1, We Energies announced
completion of the sale of its two-unit
Point Beach Nuclear Plant to FPL Energy.
On that day, FPL assumed management
and operation of Point Beach from Nuclear
Management Co., which had operated the
plant for We Energies since 2000.
FPL Energy bought the plant, its nu-
clear fuel, and associated inventories for
$924 million. With final closing adjust-
ments, the deal also will release to We En-
ergies decommissioning trust investments
worth more than $482 million. All told,
the sale will yield more than $882 million
of proceeds for the benefit of We Energies
customersabout $57 million more than
originally projected.
The Point Beach plant is located near
Two Rivers, Wis. Its first unit entered com-
mercial service in 1970 and is licensed to
operate until 2030. The second unit came
on-line in 1973 and has an operating li-
cense that expires in 2033.
The sale includes a long-term power-
purchase agreement that requires FPL
Energy to sell 100% of each units pro-
duction to We Energies until its current
license expires. We Energies also has the
option to purchase power resulting from
any capacity uprates, as well as an option
to invest in and own up to 40% of any
new generation built at the site.
Australian CO
2
reduction project
breaks ground. Alstom has hired Inter-
national Power (Technologies) Pty Ltd.
to design, engineer, and build a dem-
onstration plant at its Australia & New
Zealand subsidiarys 8 x 200-MW lignite-
fired Hazelwood Power Station. The proj-
ect will showcase technologies capable
of dramatically reducing the plants CO
2

intensity.
The scope of the project includes dem-
onstrating a new lignite drying tech-
nology, developed by Alstom and RWE
of Germany, for reducing the moisture
content of brown coal from over 60% to
12%. The retrofit will require modifying
one of Hazelwoods eight boilers to re-
duce its CO
2
emissions intensity by 20%,
increase its capacity by 10%, and extend
its life to 2030. The project also will en-
tail augmenting the units fuel heating
system and upgrading its steam turbine-
generator.
The project, called Hazelwood 2030,
has received strong public support in
the forms of a $50 million grant from the
Australian governments Low Emissions
Technology Development Fund and a $30
million grant from the government of Vic-
toria State as part of its Energy Technol-
ogy Innovation Strategy.
Contracts also have been finalized with
Alstom for the supply of all equipment and
technology. The project will now move
into the detailed design phase. Ground-
breaking is scheduled for 2008.
The Hazelwood 2030 project also calls
for construction of a pilot carbon capture
plant by late 2008. Designed to capture
16 to 25 tons of CO
2
per day from one
of the facilitys generating units, the pilot
plant will be one of the worlds biggest.
The capture technology to be used will
use a solvent solution injected into the
flue gas to absorb CO
2
.
Innovative solar thermal plant
planned for Florida. FPL Group says it
plans to build what may become a 300-
MW solar thermal power plant in Florida.
If the project pans out, the plant would
be the states first commercial facility of
its kind.
FPL will begin by building a prototype
10-MW facility using technology from
Ausra Inc. that employs flat arrays of Fres-
nel lenses to focus the suns heat. Most
solar thermal plants use parabolic mirrors
to perform that function, which has not
yet been proven commercially viable.
According to FPL, the capacity of the
pilot plant will be scaled up to 300 MW
only if the Ausra technology meets its
cost and performance goals. In a related
announcement, FPL said it also plans to
develop 200 MW of solar thermal power
plants in California over the next seven
years.
006 GM.indd 16 11/5/07 4:16:18 PM
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|
November 2007 18
FOCUS ON O&M FOCUS ON O&M FOCUS ON O&M FOCUS ON O&M FOCUS ON O&M FOCUS ON O&M FOCUS ON O&M FOCUS ON O&M FOCUS ON O&M FOCUS ON O&M FOCUS ON O&M FOCUS ON O&M FOCUS ON O&M FOCUS ON O&M FOCUS ON O&M FOCUS ON O&M FOCUS ON O&M FOCUS ON O&M FOCUS ON O&M FOCUS ON O&M FOCUS ON O&M FOCUS ON O&M FOCUS ON O&M
FOCUS ON O&M
SYSTEM RELIABILITY
The NERC auditors
are coming
The persons responsible for reliability (re-
sponsible entities) at utilities and other
participants in the U.S./Canadian bulk
power industry are preparing to have their
companies compliance with the North
American Electric Reliability Corp.s (NERCs)
mandatory reliability standards audited by
teams from NERC Regional Entities (REs).
The audit schedule for 20082010 should
have been posted on NERCs web site (www
.nerc.com) by the end of October.
Transmission operators, balancing au-
thorities, generator owner/operators, and
the other functional responsible-entity
categories are gathering documentation
and other evidence to demonstrate their
compliance with the reliability standards
to the audit teams. NERC REs will notify
entities of the date of their audit and
which standards it will address. NERC
posted Reliability Standards Audit Work-
sheets for 40 different reliability-related
activities on its web site this May, ahead
of the June 1 effective date of the stan-
dards. The site visit will conclude with an
exit presentation by the audit team and
the passing out of an audit evaluation
form to be filled out by audit team mem-
bers and the audited entity.
New compliance challenges
As responsible entities vet the standards
applicable to their category, they are find-
ing that, in most cases, compliance is be-
ing achieved. Their next challenges are to
ensure that all internal departments know
which activities they must perform and
document and that proof of compliance
is readily accessible in a convenient for-
mat. For many participants, the challenge
of compliance has become a question of
how and where, rather than if.
Responsible entities are preparing for
the audits in various ways, from insisting
on electronic documentation, to planning
to record or transcribe the audit itself, to
arranging for their lawyers to be present.
Some are making plans to have consultants
on hand for pre-audit preparation, for the
audit itself, and for post-audit activities
such as evaluation, settlement of alleged
violations, and contributing to records
needed to support litigation, if needed.
Complicating these efforts is the fact
that the structure, intent, and target of
some standards remain unclear and ques-
tionable. Many of the mandatory standards
were adapted from voluntary standards
written when most utilities were vertically
integrated and housed separate functions
such as balancing authority, transmission
owner, transmission operator, load-serv-
ing entity, and generator owner/opera-
tor under one roof. Because deregulation
unbundled many of these functions, some
reliability standards and their require-
ments now are difficult to apply to dis-
crete responsible entities.
In some cases, the complications re-
sulting from unbundling even extend to
registration of functional entities. For
example, in some instances competitive
retail power providers are being cast in
the role of load-serving entities, required
to account for demand-side management
programs and load forecasting. NERC says
it is in the process of realigning the func-
tional model that serves as the basis of
registrations. But that is little comfort to
the responsible entities at new partici-
pant categories that were not part of the
old industry structure. They are being told
that they must comply with the new stan-
dards even as their scope of applicability
is being revised.
Dazed and confused
Until discrepancies like these are re-
solved, confusion and anxiety in the in-
dustry will continue to grow and threaten
to undermine the intent and acceptance
of mandatory reliability standards. Heres
hoping that NERC auditors do not stub-
bornly insist on evidence of compliance
from those responsible entities who are
unsure even of which data to access to
meet their requirements.
On the other hand, theres no doubt
that NERC and its overseerthe Federal
Energy Regulatory Commissionhave
succeeded in raising the industrys aware-
ness of the standards, not to mention the
penalties for failing to comply with them.
Through its Work Plan, NERC will eventu-
ally resolve the questions of applicability
and ambiguity. Until it does, audited en-
tities should feel free to press their audit
team on issues they feel are unclear or
unsustainable under the current language
of the standards.
Assuming they have prepared adequate-
ly, and made themselves aware of both
the spirit and letter of the new reliability
laws, responsible entities should be able
to approach their audit with confidence,
anticipating an active exchange with the
audit team. Ideally, auditsan essential
part of compliance enforcementwill
enhance, rather than detract from the
overall reliability of the North American
bulk power system during this early phase
of transition from voluntary to manda-
tory standards. With common-sense ap-
plication of standards and the industrys
continued participation in refining them,
that is an achievable goal.
Jim Stanton (jstanton@icfi.com),
POWER contributing editor and director of
NERC compliance for ICF International.
INSTRUMENTATION
Winning encore
for on-line pH monitoring
On-line pH monitoring is a quick and ac-
curate way to determine if a high-purity
boiler feedwater system has become con-
taminated. If impurities in the system
volatize into steam in the boiler, they can
end up as scale on tubes. If the impurities
make it to the turbine, they can end up
as scale on blades. Besides causing O&M
1. Intruder alert. The new owner of
Huntley Power Station, near Buffalo, N.Y.,
installed Hach pH/oxidation reduction poten-
tial panels specifically designed for accurate,
reliable operation of its high-purity feedwater
system. The panels address CO
2
intrusion
and static buildup problems that conventional
pH meters have a hard time handling. Cour-
tesy: Hach Co.
018 O&M.indd 18 11/5/07 4:17:33 PM
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018 O&M.indd 19 11/5/07 4:17:36 PM
POWER
|
November 2007 20
FOCUS ON O&M
problems, scale promotes corrosionthe
culprit in about half of boiler outages and
the majority of tube failures.
Although process pH instruments are to-
day commonly used to monitor steam water
circuits to safeguard against contamina-
tion, technicians at Huntley Power Station
in Tonawanda, N.Y., had long relied solely
on daily grab sample measurements be-
cause the facility was not equipped with
accurate on-line instrumentation.
The 1999 acquisition of the Huntley
plant by NRG Energy (www.nrgenergy
.com) brought numerous positive changes
to the station. One was the addition in
November 2006 of on-line pH and con-
ductivity sensors and other advanced
water-chemistry analysis instrumentation
for monitoring key points in the stations
boiler water circuits. The new sensors and
instruments (Figure 1, p. TK) have sig-
nificantly improved the accuracy of the
plants on-line water-chemistry monitor-
ing program, which helps drive critical
process control decisions. For example,
data logging and trending of key process
parameters have given the Huntley plants
water chemistry techs new insight into the
operation of the water treatment system.
Easy act to follow
Huntley, a coal-fired baseload plant just
north of Buffalo, is a key player in the
western New York energy market and one
of the lowest-cost producers in the state.
The plants two 200-MW units operate at
2,550 psi and superheat temperatures in
excess of 1,000F. Surface water from the
Niagara River is the plants source of raw
water. It is treated first by precipitation,
then filtering, and finally by ion-exchange
demineralization. The treatment plant
produces about 300,000 gallons of high-
purity feedwater daily.
Technicians monitor pH, conductiv-
ity, chlorides, silica, iron, and copper at
various points in the plants water/steam
cycle. The boiler waters pH is maintained
between 9.0 and 9.4, while its conduc-
tivity is kept below 5 microsiemens per
centimeter (S/cm).
On-line water chemistry analyzers had
been installed at Huntley in the mid-
1990s, but their performance was never
reliable, according to Ray LaMarca, the
plants chief technician. We didnt be-
lieve the analyzers readings, LaMarca
says. We looked at them every day, but
they never agreed with the results from
our chem lab. As a result, we never trusted
the analyzers enough to rely on them.
Looking for a good pH meter
Unable to trust the instrumentation, op-
erators were forced to rely exclusively on
grab sample analysisa poor situation
for a baseload plant. With better on-line
instruments available and NRG willing to
invest in them, the decision was made to
install reliable, accurate on-line feedwa-
ter analysis gear.
Selecting an on-line pH analyzer is
challenging. Its difficult to accurately
read the pH of high-quality makeup water
because its inherently low solution con-
ductivity creates several problems that
can lead to gross measurement errors. For
example, intrusion of CO
2
from the atmo-
sphere can acidify samples of pure water,
lowering their apparent pH below 7. An-
other common problem is static buildup,
which occurs because pure water is a poor
conductor of electricity. Buildups create
static charges when they flow past non-
conducting materials in a pH sensor and
generate stray currents in the solution
that may cause large errors.
Huntley Power Station ultimately se-
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018 O&M.indd 20 11/5/07 4:17:37 PM
Bechtel:
Powerful Experience
For over 60 years, Bechtel has set an unrivaled standard for performance in the power industry. We've
built more than 350 fossil and 150 nuclear units on six continents. We have pioneered cost-saving mass
customization of fossil plant design, construction, and operations. And we've been out front supporting
emerging technologies such as coal gasification and fluidized-bed combustion. With prime responsibility
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or dependability than Bechtel. No one.
BECHTEL POWER Frederick, Maryland, USA
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www.bechtel.com
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018 O&M.indd 21 11/5/07 4:17:43 PM
POWER
|
November 2007 22
FOCUS ON O&M
lected Model 8362sc pH/oxidation reduc-
tion potential (ORP) panels from Hach Co.
(www.hach.com) because they are spe-
cifically designed for high-purity water
treatment systems. For example, the pan-
els design addresses the problems of CO
2

intrusion and static buildup that conven-
tional pH metering system designs have
trouble dealing with. The panels housing
is completely sealed to prevent carbon di-
oxide intrusion, and it and the sampling
chamber are made of conductive materials
that minimize static charges and the po-
tential for stray currents (Figure 2).
New home for the system
The new Hach system was installed in
a new sample room (Figure 3), where it
monitors the boiler water, feedwater,
and hotwells of both generating units.
Conductivity also is monitored on-line at
several points of each water/steam circuit
using separate controllers. In addition,
two other sensors monitor cation con-
ductivity in both hotwells and feedwater
lines. The new pH and conductivity probes
also monitor temperature, which can play
a significant role in chemical changes and
their interpretation.
The pH and conductivity units plug into
the controllers, each of which can receive
data from up to two sensors simultane-
ously. The two sensors need not be for the
same parameter (a controller unit can ac-
cept conductivity, pH/ORP, dissolved oxy-
gen, and turbidity probes). Huntley Power
Plant installed eight controllers to serve
six pH panels and 10 conductivity probes.
The units have built-in data loggers that
can collect measurements at user-defined
intervals from 1 to 30 minutes, along with
calibration and verification points, alarm
histories, and instrument setup changes
covering six months. At Huntley, the con-
trollers are configured to send 4- to-20-
milliamp signals to the plants distributed
control system (DCS).
Tough audience
After having negative experiences with the
previous on-line monitoring instruments,
Huntley station technicians understand-
ably were skeptical about the accuracy of
the new systems measurements. But their
assessments to date have been quite sat-
isfactory, according to LaMarca.
When we compare the pH readings of
the new panels to those obtained in our
lab, the two sets of readings are always
very close, reports LaMarca. Theyre
not identical, but theyre typically within
0.10. Weve also found that the new units
have very little drift. PH measurement is
very difficult in our kind of application,
and the new instruments have been good
to us so far.
LaMarca is also pleased that the new
system has required little maintenance
to date. Much of the maintenance entails
periodically cleaning the flow cells and
doing monthly calibrations, which can be
accomplished easily and automatically us-
ing panel touchscreens. No repairs or re-
placements have been required.
The addition of data logging and real-
time data monitoring capabilities has al-
lowed technicians to respond to problems
much more proactively. The data are up-
dated every 6 minutes on my DCS screen,
LaMarca says, and thats great for trend-
ing and watching the effect of changes in
treatment timing.
For example, we control pH by feeding
an amine into the hotwell. The continu-
ous monitoring and data feed from our
2. A well-instrumented system. Conductivity and pH units plug into controllers that
each can receive data from two sensors simultaneously. Huntley Power Plant now has eight
controllers serving six pH panels and 10 conductivity probes. Courtesy: Hach Co.
3. New sample room. The units have built-in data loggers that collect measurements
at user-defined intervals and send analog signals to the plants distributed control system.
Courtesy: Hach Co.
018 O&M.indd 22 11/5/07 4:17:44 PM
Our name may change, but our
commitment to excellence
remains the same.
Weve helped power Texas for
more than 100 years, and the
commitment, expertise and intensity
of the Luminant team remains
as strong as ever.
With our name change comes
a whole new era of possibility.
We believe the search for bright
new ideas and innovations is as
much a part of our responsibility
as operating safely and keeping
Texas supplied with power.
So while our name may change,
our commitment remains the same:
providing cleaner, dependable,
aordable power for
the future of Texas.
www.Luminant.com
The Power of Possibility.
TXU Power becomes Luminant.
018 O&M.indd 23 11/5/07 4:17:52 PM
POWER
|
November 2007 24
FOCUS ON O&M
pH meters allow us to quickly detect the
changes produced by its addition. Case
in point: after a shutdown of one of our
units, we immediately saw a significant
drop in the pH in the hotwell of the other
unit, which was still on-line. As it turned
out, someone had inadvertently left a tie
valve on the off-line left open, allowing
its feed of amine to enter the operating
unit. The valve was finally closed during
shutdown procedures, prompting the pH
drop. Thanks to the new meters, I was
quickly made aware of the situation. After
I corrected it by making a series of adjust-
ments to the amine feed rate, I was able
to watch the pH of the on-line unit rise
on my DCS screen.
By Phil Kiser (pkiser@hach.com),
Hachs industrial applications manager.
PLANT MAINTENANCE
Using balloons
as temporary barriers
Making repairs to cooling water intake pipes
suffering from flow-accelerated corrosion,
erosion, or even zebra mussel infestation is
critical to plant reliability. Maintaining the
integrity of 12- or 13-foot-diameter pipes
4. Put this in your pipe. Ershigs Inc.a designer, manufacturer, and installer of corro-
sion-resistant, fiberglass reinforced plastic fluid-handling structures and piping systemsused
duct balloons to prevent styrene fumes from escaping the work area during a recent intake-pipe
relining project at FirstEnergys Perry nuclear plant. Courtesy: G.R. Werth & Associates Inc.
I
n an unpredictable climate of economic
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018 O&M.indd 24 11/5/07 4:17:53 PM
November 2007
|
POWER 25
FOCUS ON O&M
during the fixes always requires specialized experience, and oc-
casionally some unorthodox repair methods as well.
FirstEnergy recently hired Ershigs Inc. (www.ershigs.com)
to reline the intake pipes of its Perry Nuclear Power Plant near
Cleveland in-situ with a fiberglass material to protect them. The
first phase of the project targeted 400 feet of pipe. The bond-
ing improves if the inside of the pipe is clean and the work
is performed at an ambient temperature above 60F. So before
the relining work began, temporary barriers of wood and plastic
sheeting were constructed on-site and placed inside the pipes to
provide for dust and temperature controlthe usual tactic.
Building a 12-foot-round wood barrier can be very time-con-
suming. Whats more, variations in the geometry and condi-
tions of a pipes inner wall make it almost impossible to create
a good seal between the barrier and the wall. After this wagon
wheel wood frame has been constructed, plastic sheeting is
then attached to it. Sometimes, holes are cut in the sheeting
to allow for the passage of ventilation tubes for evacuating
styrene fumes and supplying fresh air to the work area.
After the piping has been relined, the wood frame and plastic
barriers typically are removed and thrown in the trash. Thats
what Ershigs did on the first phase of the FirstEnergy project.
Unhappy with the ineffectiveness and waste of this homemade
barrier method, the utility asked the contractor to devise a better
scheme for isolating pipes during their repair.
The second phase of the project called for relining 200 linear
feet of pipe. This time, Ershigs used inflatable bulkheadsalso
known as duct balloonsmanufactured by Scherba Industries
Inc. and distributed exclusively by G.R. Werth & Associates, Inc.
The duct balloons (Figure 4) are made of a heavy-duty, tear-
resistant material that conforms to any imperfections in the in-
ner diameter of a pipe. Each balloon is equipped with a 120-V
high-pressure blower system that remains on at all times to keep
the balloon fully inflated, even in the event of a small hole or
cut. Should more extensive damage occur, it can be repaired
quickly using the supplied patch kit.
To meet the needs of the second phase of the Perry project,
Scherba and Werth supplied two duct balloonsone 12 and the
other 13 feet in diameter. Each included a 6-foot by 3-foot access
door with Velcro closure flaps to allow workers to pass through
the balloon while it remained fully inflated. Each balloon also
was equipped with a 20-inch-diameter access hole with Velcroed
flaps (Figure 5) to facilitate passing a vent line through it.
A duct balloon weighs less than 50 pounds and inflates in
under 2 minutes. A large deflation zipper enables it to be re-
moved from service in less than 1 minute. Grab handles make
it easy to put a balloon in place, and anchor rings provide
tie-down points to prevent it from being moved by positive
pressure inside the pipe.
For more information, visit www.ductballoon.com or contact
Gary Werth (gary@grwerth.com ) of G.R. Werth at 630-564-7471.
ENERGY EFFICIENCY
How data logging
can cut power bills
One of the greatest challenges facing building owners and facili-
ties professionals today is finding ways to reduce energy costs.
The challenge can be even greater in factories full of electricity-
hungry production equipment.
Air compressors, for example, are often a factorys largest en-
ergy consumers. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, the
majority of compressed-air systems at small and midsize indus-
trial facilities have energy-efficiency opportunities.
Concerned about its factorys high and rising electric bill,
a New Yorkbased metal products manufacturer recently hired
Power Concepts LLC (www.powerconceptsllc.com), a Manhattan-
based consulting engineer, to conduct an energy audit at its
plant. Specifically, the company wanted to monitor the run times
of a number of air compressors in the factory to better under-
stand their consumption patterns and pinpoint where energy-
saving opportunities existed.
5. Easy in, easy out. A side view of a Scherba Industries duct
balloon, showing the access door in the front. G.R. Werth & Associ-
ates Inc.
018 O&M.indd 25 11/5/07 4:17:56 PM
POWER
|
November 2007 26
FOCUS ON O&M
First, do an audit
Betsy Jenkins, director of Power Concepts energy field team, led
the audit. She explains, our client believed that air compressors
were consuming most of the factorys energy. They wanted us to
confirm that by calculating precisely how long several operated
over a typical period. With that information in hand, we would
then be able to recommend steps the client could take to cut the
factorys power consumption.
To monitor the compressors run times, Jenkins chose HOBO
State (on/off) data loggers from Onset Computer Corp. (www
.onsetcomp.com). She did so as a result of her experience, as
well as the units excellent reputation. In our line of work,
we have to make sure that our recommendations are based on
accurate data, Jenkins says. Thats where HOBOs really shine,
and it doesnt hurt that theyre very reliable and inexpensive,
too.
HOBO State loggers (Figure 6) are compact, battery-powered
devices used to track changes in the operating status of a piece
of equipment. In practice, a unit does just one job: recording
every time that, say, a motor or compressor turns on or off, as
well as the direction of the transition. For this customer, Jenkins
team attached one HOBO to each of the factorys three main
compressors and then let it monitor changes in status over a
two-week period (Figure 7).
After two weeks worth of data had been recorded, the infor-
mation was uploaded to a PC and analyzed using Onsets HOBO-
ware Pro graphing and analysis software. The analysis indicated
that compressor run times were unusually high, verifying the
customers gut feeling.
Then, apply the results
Jenkins and her team then performed a second, more in-depth
evaluation of the factory while it was shut down, during lunch
hour. They detected several places where compressed air was
leaking out of fittings. In one case, they noted a compressed air
nozzle whose actuating handle had been taped open to disperse
fumes.
Because we conducted our site survey when the building was
quiet, we were able to hear hissing sounds that no one had
noticed before, Jenkins explains. We also discovered that one
operator was using a compressor nozzle as a fan to blow fumes
away from his welding machine. He had no idea that doing so
was costing the company a ton of money. He could have had the
fumes dispersed much more cheaply by asking his boss to have a
small fan mounted near the machine.
According to Jenkins, the data loggers also were instrumen-
tal in helping her client understand that a large portion of the
factorys power consumption was attributable to several leaks in
air compressors. Before conducting the audit, our client didnt
realize how often the compressors were running. Now he does,
and we expect that our recommended energy conservation mea-
suresplugging those leaks, for examplewill save him a tidy
sum, concludes Jenkins.
Contributed by Onset Computer Corp. (www.onsetcomp.com).
6. On the job. A Hobo State unit monitoring transitions of an air-
operated valve. Courtesy: Power Concepts LLC
7. Big iron, small plastic. Another kind of Hobo, riding the rails
of a compressor motor. Courtesy: Power Concepts LLC
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018 O&M.indd 26 11/5/07 4:17:57 PM
I V A N G E N O V
Executive Director
Kozloduy Nuclear Power Plant (Bulgaria)
D I A N E F I S H E R
Westinghouse Program Manager
(Kozloduy & Eastern Europe)
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018 O&M.indd 27 11/5/07 4:18:02 PM
|
November 2007 28
LEGAL & REGULATORY
Steven F. Greenwald Jeffrey P. Gray
Can FERC deliver
transmission?
By Steven F. Greenwald and Jeffrey P. Gray
T
his May, the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) reject-
ed a proposal by Southern California Edison (SCE) to build
Devers-Palo Verde No. 2 (DPV2)a 230-mile-long, high-
voltage transmission line connecting California and Arizona.
The line, approved by the California Public Utilities Commission
(CPUC) four months earlier, would enable SCE to import addi-
tional low-cost electricity from Arizona. The ACCs rejection of
DPV2 highlights a significant challenge for state and regional
resource plannersweighing state interests against the regional
benefits of interstate electricity commerce.
State v. state
Although it unanimously approved DPV2, the CPUC found that
the project has several significant unmitigable environmental im-
pacts. Nevertheless, it also determined that DPV2 would provide
significant economic benefits . . . , increase the reliability of the
interstate transmission network . . . [and provide] . . . an eco-
nomic hedge against transmission and generation outages and
natural gas price hikes. Given these benefits, the CPUC concluded
that the environmental impacts of DPV2 would be acceptable.
The ACC, by contrast, rejected DPV2 as a California power
grabboth literally and figuratively. Commissioner Kris Mayes
scorned the line as a 230-mile extension cord into Arizona . . .
[that] . . . would come at the expense of Arizona ratepayers, Ari-
zona air quality, Arizona land, Arizona water, and Arizona wildlife.
Commissioner Jeff Hatch-Miller called on California to step up to
the plate and begin building its own generationin California.
The ACCs rejection places the future of DPV2 in serious
doubt.
Overruling the states
The Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPAct) directs the U.S. Department
of Energy (DOE) to pinpoint transmission congestion problems
and authorizes the secretary of energy to designate as national
interest electric transmission corridors geographic areas where
such problems adversely affect consumers. Once an area has
been designated a national interest corridor, the federal govern-
mentspecifically, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
(FERC)can approve any proposed transmission project within
the area for which state regulators have withheld approval for
more than a year. In a 2006 rulemaking, FERC interpreted the
meaning of the word withheld in EPAct to include denied.
So, in effect, FERC can overrule a states rejection of any trans-
mission project in a designated congested region simply by find-
ing that it would ease the congestion.
Last month, the DOE designated areas of Arizona and southern
Californiaincluding some that DPV2 would pass throughas
the Southwest national interest corridor, presenting SCE the op-
portunity to have FERC reverse the ACC decision. It remains un-
clear, however, whether the utility will take it. SCE has stated
that it will continue to work with the CPUC and ACC on DPV2
permitting issues.
Back to square one
SCEs initial reluctance to involve FERC suggests that the util-
ity believes it may be cheaper and quicker to try to work things
out with Arizona. Asking FERC to intervene requires a projects
sponsor to file an application, essentially restarting the entire
approval process. The application would be (as at the state level)
subject to protestan inevitability for any large transmission
project. As part of any application proceeding, FERC would also
conduct a full environmental review and evaluate alternatives.
SCE filed its DPV2 application at the CPUC in April 2005. Now,
more than two years later, it finds its only two options are to
address the ACCs concerns or to begin again at FERC. Although
FERCs history of approving virtually every application it has re-
ceived for natural gas transmission pipelines suggests it offers a
friendlier venue, pursuing either option will delay the project
and increase its cost.
A road to nowhere?
In designating the Southwest corridor, the DOEnoting grow-
ing demand for powerexplained that, now, more than ever,
we must look at electricity generation from a regional and na-
tional perspective. However, the designation by itself neither
overturns the ACCs ruling nor guarantees that any new trans-
mission lines will be built in the corridor. Indeed, given the
considerable time and cost needed to secure a FERC decision
overruling a state decision, using the national corridor process
to change jurisdiction may not prove to be a practical alterna-
tive to the state project approval processes that EPAct clearly
intended to reform.
As the need for new generating capacity (particularly capac-
ity powered by renewable resources) grows, states must work
together to develop regional transmission solutions. Wind in
Wyoming, solar in Arizona, and hydro and biomass in the Pacific
Northwest all require a network of interstate facilities to bring
power from remote areas to load centers.
Accordingly, transmission needs should increasingly be as-
sessed through a regional lens. Whenever the political and pa-
rochial interests of a state impede the development of a needed
project, a practical alternative must be available. National inter-
est transmission corridors could be the answer, but at first blush,
they may not offer one.
Steven F. Greenwald (stevegreenwald@dwt.com) leads
Davis Wright Tremaines Energy Practice Group.
Jeffrey P. Gray (jeffgray@dwt.com) is a partner
in the firms Energy Practice Group.
028 L&R.indd 28 11/5/07 4:18:24 PM
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028 L&R.indd 29 11/5/07 4:18:26 PM
|
November 2007 30
TOP PLANTS
Browns Ferry
Nuclear Power Plant,
Athens, Alabama
Owner/operator: Tennessee Valley Authority
TVAs 1,155-MW Browns Ferry Unit 1 returned to service on May 22 after sitting
idle since 1985, when all three units were shut down to address manage-
ment and operational concerns. Units 2 and 3 returned to service in 1991
and 1995, respectively, after extensive upgrades to controls, electrical sys-
tems, pumps, motors, and more. The return of Unit 1 began in 2002 with a
five-year $1.8 billion restart plan to make all three units essentially identi-
cal, and that goal was accomplished in style. Welcome back, Unit 1.
By Kennedy Maize
T
he Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)
would be entirely justified in renam-
ing its Browns Ferry Unit 1 nuclear
power plant the Phoenix power plant. Not
for geographic reasons (the plant is located
in Alabama, not Arizona). Rather, the name
would be an appropriate nod to the mytho-
logical Egyptian bird that repeatedly dies in
fire and is reborn from ashes to conquer the
sky. The 1,200-MW General Electric boiling
water reactor powering the unit has twice
crashed in ashesfirst literally and then
figurativelyduring its 40-year history, and
been reborn. It has earned its title as the ulti-
mate comeback reactor.
Whats old is new again
The latest return of Browns Ferry Unit 1
to service this year results from a massive
upgrading and restart of an existing reac-
torone that had not run since 1985, when
a regulatory shutdown of TVAs entire five-
reactor fleet idled this elderly unit. Over the
years, TVA returned the two younger Browns
Ferry boilers and the two Sequoyah Westing-
house pressurized water reactor (PWR) units
to service. Finally, it commissioned the Watts
Bar Unit 1 PWR plant in 1996.
The Watts Bar start-up marked the last
commissioning of a new nuclear plant in the
U.S., emptying the nuclear construction pipe-
line that began to dry up in the mid-1970s.
But Browns Ferry Unit 1 (Figure 1) re-
mained in stasis. Not dead, but in a deep ad-
ministrative coma.
In 2002, TVA decided that, given current
and anticipated load growth, it needed to get
the nuclear unit back in service. Restarting
(and massively refurbishing) the aged nuke,
the TVA board concluded, was less costly
overall than building new generation. Five
years and $1.8 billion later, the geriatric
plant is up and running again, flexing its up-
graded muscles and looking very much like
a new unit.
The U.S. nuclear industry, always putting
an optimistic face on its long-lasting exile
from the generating market, has billed the
Browns Ferry restart as the first new nuclear
plant of the 21st century. Thats understand-
able hyperbole, but not entirely accurate.
TVA first broke ground on Browns Ferry in
1967. The plant that went back into service
in 40 years later in 2007 surely isnt the same
one that started generating electricity in the
early 1970s.
Browns Ferry Unit 1 isnt the first U.S.
unit of the 21st century; its the last unit of the
20th centuryafter being one of the first.
1. Successful restart. Browns Ferry Unit 1 was restarted in May of this year after a five-
year, $1.8 billion overhaul. It had been idled since 1985, when it was shut down because of
plant management and operations concerns. Courtesy: TVA
030 TP_Alabama.indd 30 11/5/07 4:49:42 PM
November 2007
|
POWER 31
TOP PLANTS
Unit 1s storied history
The history of Browns Ferry Unit 1 illustrates
the complexities of nuclear power economics
and politics and the futility of making broad
futuristic claims based on limited data. That
the plant exists at all today is remarkable. It
is a testament to the fundamental GE design
and the modern management of TVA. It is
also a reminder of TVAs earlier history and
its longest-serving, autocratic chief, Aubrey
Red Wagner, who ran the federal power
agency from 1961 to 1978 (Figure 2).
Nobody in America in the 1960s was
more enthusiastic about the promise of
nuclear power than Wisconsin farm boy
Red Wagner. A civil engineer trained at the
University of Wisconsin, he joined TVA in
1934, shortly after its birth at the hands of
President Franklin Delano Roosevelts po-
litical midwifery. Roosevelt, as governor of
New York, had previously created the Power
Authority of the State of New York, which
became the TVA prototype.
A talented engineer, Wagner rose through
TVA ranks. In 1961, President John F. Ken-
nedy named Wagner to head the regional
power and economic development agency.
By 1965, Wagner had concluded that nuclear
power was the future of electric generation,
particularly for the TVA region. He had
moved the TVA system away from the hy-
dropower resources that had formed its gen-
erating basis on the Tennessee River toward
the plentiful coal resources in the regiona
recognition that hydro had just about used up
its potential in the region.
But Wagner didnt want to be vulnerable
to volatile coal prices and the possibilities
of air pollution control costs. TVA was the
largest utility consumer of coal in the 1960s
and 1970s. For more than a decade it fought
federal air pollution control regulations, ar-
guing that, as a federal government agency,
it was exempt from the Clean Air Act gov-
erning other generators. Even TVA lawyers
didnt really believe that argument, though
they argued it in federal courts. They ulti-
mately lost.
Nuclear reactors promised a generating
technology indifferent to fuel prices and with
no emissions of sulfur dioxide and oxides of
nitrogen; Wagner was sold. A TVA biogra-
pher accurately said of Wagner, He oversaw
the construction of the agencys last dams
and its first nuclear reactors.
Nuclear reactor salesmen regarded Wag-
ner as an easy mark. One of them told me
the 1980s, You could pitch a new nuclear
technology at Red and after a hour, hed say,
Ill take two units. Indeed, at one point,
TVA agreed to buy 17 nuclear unitsinclud-
ing boiling water reactors (BWRs), pressur-
ized water reactors, and high-temperature
gas-cooled reactorsfrom five different
vendors.
Ultimately, after expenditures of billions
of dollars, five units got built: three BWRs,
including Browns Ferry Unit 1, and two
PWRs at Sequoyah. A final PWR went into
service at Watts Bar in 1996. The TVA board
voted this year to resume construction on a
second Watts Bar unit thats been mothballed
for more than a decade. When Watts Bar Unit
2 is completed, it will supplant Browns Ferry
Unit 1 as the final nuclear plant of the 20th
century (Figure 3).
2. Hard charger. Aubrey Red Wagner
was responsible for transforming TVA from
a hydro and coal utility into a nuclear utility.
Courtesy: TVA
3. Double play. TVAs board authorized completion of the 1,180-MW Watts Bar Unit 2 on August 1 of this year. Construction of Unit 2 was
about 80% complete when work was suspended in the early 1990s. The project is expected to cost $2.49 billion and be finished by 2013. Unit
1 began operating in 1996 and is the last commercial nuclear unit in the U.S. to begin operation. Courtesy: TVA
POWER
|
November 2007 32
TOP PLANTS
The last shall be first
Browns Ferry was TVAs first nuclear unit;
the reactor order was placed in 1966. The
Atomic Energy Commissionwithin a de-
cade to be eviscerated by creation of the U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)
licensed the plant to operate in 1973, near
Decatur, Ala., at a place that was historically
a well-known ford of the Tennessee River,
widely commemorated in folk songs.
In fact, these lines from a traditional Ala-
bama blues tune (author unknown) ring true
for the nuclear plant as well: Hard luck pop-
pa standing in the rain/If the world was corn
he couldnt buy grain/Lord Lord got those
Browns Ferry Blues.
The first Browns Ferry unit entered com-
mercial service on August 1, 1974. It was at
that time the worlds largest nuclear power
plant. The 1,200-MW GE boiler with a Mark
1 donut and lightbulb containment struc-
ture was also decidedly state of the art.
The two GE BWRs that followed at the
site were also state-of-the-art reactors, with
upgraded pressure-suppression contain-
ments. Units 2 and 3, as of March 1, 1975,
and March 1, 1977, made Browns Ferry by
far the largest nuclear power station in the
world at the time. (Japan now has the largest
nuclear station at Tokyo Electric Power Co.s
Kashiwazaki-Kariwa station. Its seven units
produce 8,200 MW of electric power.)
When the first Browns Ferry unit went
into service, said a report by the Union of
Concerned Scientists, The few dozen oper-
ating nuclear power plants in the U.S. pro-
duced barely more energy than the nation
derived from firewood.
Missing fire-stops
Despite its promise and initial quality per-
formance, Browns Ferry Unit 1 had some
important safety vulnerabilities that were un-
anticipated by the industry, the utility, or the
newly created NRC. Those were the early
days of nuclear regulation, before regulators
recognized the full complexities of nuclear
generation.
One unforeseen vulnerability was fire.
On March 22, 1975, during a plant modifi-
cation, as Unit 1 was in its seventh month
of successful operation and Unit 2 had just
begun commercial operation, two workers
were trying to detect air leaks where elec-
trical control cables were entering the Unit
1 reactor building. The workers, apparently
uninstructed by their supervisors, were us-
ing candles to find air leaks where the cables
entered the reactor building wall. This was,
it turned out, equivalent to using cigarette
lighters to find a natural gas leak.
The physical results of holding candles
in the nuke werent as explosive as attempt-
ing to find a gas leak with an open flame,
but they were at least as economically cata-
strophic. The flames ignited polyurethane
foam insulation in the cable penetrations.
Then the plant literally went up in flames.
Unexpectedly, the fire spread quickly and
rendered the plants major safety equipment
useless. The emergency core cooling system,
expected to be the chief line of defense in a
reactor accident, couldnt function.
Fortunately, level-headed plant operators
were able to use other, manual systems to get
the reactor cooling process under control as
the plant went out of service. It took a year to
repair the damage and bring the plant back to
where it could generate power.
The fire quickly fueled the U.S. antinu-
clear movement, which had been smoldering
for some time. Not long after the fire, which
made the front pages of the nations news-
papers and the nightly news broadcasts of
the three national television networks, many
critics were questioning whether nuclear
power was a wise investment.
While conventional wisdom says the
March 29, 1979, loss-of-coolant accident
and nuclear fuel meltdown at the Three Mile
Island (TMI) nuclear plant pulled the trig-
ger on the end of the 1970s nuclear power
boom, a more nuanced analysis suggests that
it might have been the Browns Ferry fire.
A sign of future growth?
TVA accomplished a major feat in turning
a somewhat rudimentary, albeit fundamen-
tally robust, early 1970s nuclear generating
plant into a modern machine. Its 20th to
21st century, analog to digital, primitive to
modern. So far, the plant is operating with
impeccable performance charactistics, and
theres no reason to suspect it wont continue
to behave well.
Will the return of Browns Ferry Unit 1 last
May mark the beginning of the U.S. indus-
trys long-anticipated renaissance for nuclear
power? Thats not yet discernable. The ques-
tion may not be answerable. The Nuclear
Energy Institute (NEI) and other nuclear
industry interests clearly have their glowing
fingers crossed in hopes that this restart will
be the harbinger of more, and much newer,
nuclear plants.
Skip Bowman, a retired nuclear Navy
admiral, now heads the NEI, the industrys
Washington lobby. (Is it possible to run the
NEI without having been a nuclear Navy
veteran?) Bowman said in a written state-
ment, We believe this project will mark the
beginning of nuclear energys rejuvenation
in the United States. He added the latest
talking point of nuclear generation advo-
cates: Nuclear power plants supply more
than 70% of all U.S. electricity that comes
from sources that do not emit greenhouse
gases or any of the pollutants covered by
the Clean Air Act. However, nukes provide
only about 20% of U.S. electricity genera-
tion. Coal is still king, and likely to remain
so for a long time.
Bucking the trend
The record shows that no nuclear plants or-
dered in the U.S. after 1974 got built and that
there were no new plant orders prior to March
1979, the time of the TMI meltdown. That
was probably a function of economics: The
U.S. entered at prolonged period of stagfla-
tion, a combination of low economic growth
and high inflation, in the early 1970s. New
nukes went into slow-motion death, long
before anti-nuke protesters stared marching
and complaining. By the late 1970s, nuclear
plant builders were taking out construction
loans with interest rates in excess of 20% per
year in order to finish their plants.
Nor did the U.S. fleet of nuclear reactors
have a good operational record. In 1985, un-
der intense political pressure from Congress
and the NRC, TVA voluntarily shut down its
entire nuclear fleet. In part because TVA was
a federal agency and easily subjected to scru-
tiny, TVAs plants became the poster fleet for
poor nuclear performance and a casual atti-
tude toward safety.
By 1985 new orders had dried up. U.S.
plants ran at low levels of reliability and
capacity. Operation and maintenance costs
were high. The credibility of the nuclear in-
dustry was in the radioactive toilet.
That soon changedunder the leadership
of Duke Powers charismatic CEO, the late
Bill Leefollowing the 1986 Chernobyl
nuclear power plant explosion in Ukraine.
The industry dedicated itself to improved
performance and safety. Under Lees prod-
ding, the industry reversed its course, pledg-
ing productivity and quality performance at
its plants and creating industry institutions to
ensure quality.
Over the next decade, the industry de-
livered. Plant capacity factors increased
significantly; scrams (involuntary reactor
shutdowns) decreased. The nations nuclear
fleet became a stellar performer.
That industry reversal led directly to the
restart of Browns Ferry Unit 1, as the TVA
board accepted the internal criticism and
made its decision to restart the long-idled
plant and to meet and exceed the industrys
new goals for quality and safety.
The result: another rebirth of Browns
Ferry Unit 1. Call it Phoenix. F. Scott
Fitzgerald was wrong when he said, There
are no second acts in American lives.
Browns Ferry Unit 1 is in its third act, and
is looking spry.
PRB
COAL 101
TOPICS
What makes PRB coal
different
Fire and safety risks of
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Handling PRB coal
PRB coal in the boiler
Checklist for converting
to PRB coal
Information about the
PRB Coal Users Group
PRESENTERS
Robert Taylor, AEP
Corp., Chairman of
PRB CUG
Randy Rahm, COO
Ethanex Entergy, Inc.,
Executive Dir. of
PRB CUG
Greg Krieser, Plant
Manager, Omaha Public
Power District, Vice
Chairman-Generation of
PRG CUG
Edward Douberly,
President, FPE Group
Inc., Director of
PRB CUG
An overview of the requirements to
safely and efciently use Powder River
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Attend the free one-hour webinar December 4,
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Register at www.powermag.com/prb101
|
November 2007 36
TOP PLANTS
Comanche Peak
Steam Electric Station,
Glen Rose, Texas
Owner/operator: Luminant
A Luminant-Bechtel team completed replacement of four steam generators
and the reactor vessel headplus almost 200 other work packagesin
a short, 55-day outage at Comanche Peak Unit 1. Matching or exceeding
this schedule will become the goal for those who follow.
By Dr. Robert Peltier, PE
C
omanche Peak, Luminants (formerly
TXU) only nuclear plant, has two
1,150-MW pressurized water reactors
(PWRs) that went into service in April 1990
and April 1993, respectively. Bechtel Power
Corp., working with Luminant, completed a
modernization project on Comanche Peak
Unit 1 in April 2007 that shattered the record
for fastest replacement of aging components
at a nuclear power plant.
Bechtels long experience with steam gen-
erator (SG) replacements prepared it for per-
haps its most ambitious project to date. As
the prime contractor, Bechtel replaced four
SGs and a reactor vessel head in Unit 1 dur-
ing an outage that lasted just 55 dayseight
days less than the previous record for a PWR
SG replacement outage alone and 10 days
under the original aggressive goal set when
the project was awarded to Bechtel in 2004.
Its a small world
Logistical support for nuclear plants is not
a U.S.-centric business these days, and the
1. Hold on tight. Riggers attach slings to one of the four steam generators being replaced inside Comanche Peak Unit 1s containment
structure. Courtesy: Bechtel
036 TP_Texas.indd 36 11/5/07 4:20:44 PM
November 2007
|
POWER 37
TOP PLANTS
worlds few nuclear-capable manufacturing
facilities have plenty of business. Luminant
made its purchase of new steam generators
in Spain, transported them by barge to Hous-
ton, and then delivered them to the plant by
a specially equipped train. Train tracks to the
plant were upgraded to handle the loads be-
cause they had not been used since the plant
was built. The new reactor vessel head, also
fabricated in Spain, was outfitted with new
control rod drives in Pennsylvania, trans-
ported by barge to Houston, and then trucked
to the site.
The upgraded design of the new steam
generators required installation of rerouted
main feedwater piping, along with new seis-
mically designed hangers, snubbers, and
whip restraints. Rerouted feedwater piping
interfered with existing containment build-
ing ventilation ductwork, so that ductwork
also required rerouting and new seismically
qualified hangers. The new steam genera-
tors instrument tap locations required that
new instrument tubing as well as new hang-
ers be installed. The project work scope for
the new reactor head also included providing
new cabling, new cable trays, and a new air-
handling unit with all new ductwork.
Open wide
Space is always at a premium in the design
of a power plant, but it seems lack of ma-
neuvering room for steam generator replace-
ment is something every nuclear plant has
in common. Comanche Peak is certainly no
exception. Perhaps the biggest challenge fac-
ing the project team was the lack of access to
the existing steam generators, each of which
measured about 70 feet long and 15 feet in
diameter and weighed about 400 tons (Fig-
ure 1). During original plant construction,
the containment structure around the nuclear
steam supply system was completed after the
steam generators were installedleaving no
panels or hatches that could be used for re-
moving and replacing the steam generators.
Lack of access meant the first order of
business was to locate an appropriate spot
for an opening in the containment wall large
enough for SG removal and replacement.
Given the configuration of the containment
vessel, internal crane access, and equipment
arrangement, the opening had to be posi-
tioned approximately 100 feet straight up
the wall and directly above the containment
buildings only equipment hatch.
Sharing work space among multiple task
crews tends to reduce productivity during an
outage, but extensive planning and coordina-
tion allowed the crews to openand subse-
quently closethe side of the containment
structure without hindering the flow of tools
and equipment through the equipment hatch.
Hatch act
Hydrodemolition was used to remove the
concrete for the containment alternate ac-
cess, or opening, in the containment building
(Figure 2). Hydrodemolition uses a water jet
at 20,000 psi flowing at 300 gpm through
four 3/8-inch rotating nozzles to surgically
slice through the reinforced concrete. The
robotically controlled water jet made short
work of the concrete demolition. Workers
manually marked, cut, and dressed each
layer of rebar when exposed by the water jet
and then removed 400-pound sections using
ropes, pulleys, and muscle.
Tanker trucks brought in about 1.5 million
gallons of water for the 12 diesel-powered
475-hp pumps that fed high-pressure water to
the water jet. The wastewater was collected
and properly disposed of as specified in the
various permits that were required. Luminant
properly elected to import the water for the
water jet rather than siphon water from Squaw
Creek Reservoir, which provides cooling wa-
ter for the plant. Renovating a nuclear plant
is one thing, but messing with the best bass
fishing in the area is quite another.
Lift and shift
The teams next challenge was to devise an
outside lift system (OLS) to raise the steam
generators more than 100 feet into the
air by far the tallest OLS ever used for
replacing a nuclear steam generator (Figure
3). Their difficulty was compounded by the
presence of safety-related gear located un-
der the OLS. A belt and suspender approach
3. Out with the old. An old steam generator exiting the containment building. Courtesy:
Bechtel
2. Good housekeeping. Exposed rein-
forcing bars and a clean concrete cut are all
thats left after hydrodemolition of a contain-
ment alternate access. Courtesy: Bechtel
036 TP_Texas.indd 37 11/5/07 4:20:46 PM
POWER
|
November 2007 38
TOP PLANTS
was used that rigidly attached the OLS di-
rectly to the containment wall rather than
leaving it freestanding. The OLS was then
tested with concrete block weights total-
ing 500 tons10% above the weight of the
largest liftto ensure that the assembly met
code requirements.
Six Kevlar slings were used during a SG
lift to prevent components from falling in the
unlikely event that a tornado might strike at
an inopportune time. A strand jack system
was also used instead of the traditional chain
jack used by Bechtel on all of its previous
SG replacement projects. The advantage:
The strand jack cut the transport time from
the ground to the opening from nearly six
hours to under two (Figure 4).
Big-league challenges
The biggest problem encountered during the
project occurred on the first day of the out-
age, February 24, when north-central Texas
experienced its worst dust storm in more than
20 years. Sustained winds reaching more
than 50 miles per hour darkened the sky,
and vapor pouring from the hydrodemolition
equipment created a surreal scene. Almost all
of the projects equipment, including cranes
and man lifts, had to be secured for the day.
The only equipment qualified to operate that
first day were the OLS and the hydrodemoli-
tion robots.
Staffing with qualified tradesmen and
technicians is always a challenge these days.
More than 1,300 workers were required to
perform the tasks associated with replacing
the steam generators and the reactor pressure
vessel head. Some 900 craft workers were
hired either directly or through specialty
subcontractors to complete the work. Dur-
ing a typical nuclear plant outage, subcon-
tractors usually handle cutting, machining,
and welding of coolant piping; cutting and
welding the liner plate; and insulation work.
Approximately one-third of the outage work
scope was originally assigned to permanent
staff but was later shifted to subcontractors
or new hires to the plant staff.
A tight and specialized job market re-
quires creative methods to recruit and retain
the number of qualified craftsmen required
to complete a plant outage on time. One
approach was to allow workers to custom-
ize their working hours as long as the 24/7
schedule was fully staffed at all times. A
week before the outage started, the project
switched to two, 12-hour shifts, giving work-
ers time to acclimate to the rigorous outage
schedule and providing an opportunity to sort
out other logistical problems that occur dur-
ing shift change, such as parking and badge
checkout. Every worker was given one day
off in seven, even though the outage sched-
ule was 24/7.
Luminant closed Unit 1s breaker on April
20, 2007, completing its record-breaking
SG replacement project in just 55 daysa
full 10 days fewer than the original plan
called for. Of equal importance, the team
completed the million-man-hour outage
with no lost-time accidents while never ex-
ceeding the 72-hour-per-week work sched-
ule rule per employee. This sustained level
of superior performance makes Comanche
Peak a POWER Top Plant for 2007.
4. And in with the new. A new 400-ton steam generator begins the long trip to its cubicle inside the containment building. Courtesy:
Bechtel
H
036 TP_Texas.indd 38 11/5/07 4:20:47 PM
www.hitachi.us/hpsa . power.info@hal.hitachi.com
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036 TP_Texas.indd 39 11/5/07 4:20:48 PM
|
November 2007 40
TOP PLANTS
Fermi 2 Power Plant,
Newport, Michigan
Owner: DTE Energy
Operator: Detroit Edison
Detroit Edison teamed with Washington Group International to complete a
first-of-its-kind nuclear retrofit project: replacing two moisture separa-
tor reheaters during a single 35-day outage with a perfect safety record.
POWER recognizes this significant accomplishment by naming Fermi 2
Power Plant a 2007 Top Plant.
T
he 1,150-MW Fermi 2 Power Plant,
located on the shore of Lake Erie, con-
sists of a single operating unit based
on the GE boiling water reactor design. The
plant entered commercial service in January
1988, making it one of the last nuclear power
plants to enter service in the U.S.
Fermi 2 may be young when compared
with the other 103 U.S. nuclear plants, but
age is relative; upgrades and renovations of
operating plants to extend their lives have
become the norm. In the case of Fermi 2,
during the system analysis conducted as
part of the plants recent power uprate
evaluation, DTE Energy concluded that the
plant required upgraded moisture separator
reheaters (MSRs). Sounds simple on paper,
but removing two 300-ton, 115-foot-long
vessels in one piece and replacing them
with new MSRs is much more difficult in
practice. In fact, it had never been done.
Long-term teams
That Fermi 2would take on this challenge is
a testament to a strong partnership. Washing-
ton Group International has been providing
nuclear support services through an alliance
with DTE Energy for more than 15 years. The
alliance provides DTE Energy with engineer-
ing expertise and construction resources for
major capital improvement projects; in re-
turn, Washington Group receives incentives
for developing unique design solutions that
reduce construction costs and for delivering
other value enhancements for plant operating
improvements.
Scott Reeder, vice president-DTE Alli-
ance for Washington Group, outlined the
scope of the arrangement: Our contract
under the alliance ties our nancial success
to the successful operation of the plant. As a
result, our employees have continually dem-
onstrated exceptional ownership of the Fer-
mi plants performance results and, together
with the employees of Detroit Edison, have
demonstrated exceptional teamwork. The
planning and execution of the MSR replace-
ment project are evidence of this effective
teamwork.
A team consisting of representatives of
the Fermi 2 staff and Washington Group was
formed to manage the MSR replacement
project upon its approval in January 2003.
Pre-outage work at the plant began in Sep-
tember 2005. The MSRs arrived on site in
December 2005 (Figure 1) and were lifted
to the turbine deck elevation by a heavy-lift
1. Oversize load. A new moisture separator reheater (MSR) arrived at the project site during freezing winter temperatures. It spanned two
rail cars. Courtesy: Dave Mitchell, DTE Energy photographic services
040 TP_Michigan.indd 40 11/5/07 4:21:02 PM
November 2007
|
POWER 41
TOP PLANTS
tower that spanned the railroad tracks (Fig-
ure 2). They then were transferred to the
plant by overhead bridge cranes and moved
to in-plant staging locations (Figure 3). Out-
age work began on March 25, 2006, and was
completed on May 2. The MSR project was a
part of a large refueling outage during which
Washington Group undertook a number of
other challenging projects.
Weather conditions also presented a chal-
lenge. Construction of the heavy lift tower
and movement of the vessels occurred in un-
usually cold and windy conditions, with tem-
peratures in the single digits and the wind
chill well below zero.
Create a new critical path
The MSR separates moisture from high-pres-
sure turbine exhaust and reheats the steam
for the low-pressure turbine. At Fermi 2 the
MSRs are located deep within a concrete
shielding structure and are highly integrated
with the plants piping network. That meant
the teams first order of business during the
planning process was to determine how the
old MSRs would be removed and the new
ones shoehorned into place.
The traditional approach to extracting and
replacing original equipment MSR vessels
requires extensive removal of plant equip-
ment and structures and an extended plant
3. Birds eye view. The turbine deck with the old moisture separator reheater (far right) and the new MSRs on each side of the generator.
Courtesy: Dave Mitchell, DTE Energy photographic services
2. Heavy hitter. One of the two new MSRs being lifted to the temporary construction
access panel and onto the turbine deck for staging. Courtesy: Dave Mitchell, DTE Energy
photographic services
POWER
|
November 2007 42
TOP PLANTS
outagenot an option the team would con-
sider. The standard approachand the one
used during original plant constructionwas
to install each of the MSRs in two half-sec-
tions, join the two sections by welding, and
then install piping to fit. The team was sure a
faster and cheaper procedure was possible.
However, in considering its options, the
team realized it was time- and cost-prohibi-
tive to remove existing piping and that the
existing MSRs were housed inside reinforced
concrete structures. The project was further
complicated by the fact that these compo-
nents were within the radiological-controlled
boundary of the plant and thus inaccessible
when the plant was operating. Finally, the di-
mensions of the access area constrained the
size of the new MSR. Tolerances were tight
no matter which option was considered.
A little outside-the-concrete-box think-
ing led to a unique and previously untested
one-piece installation approach that was the
teams best opportunity to stay within its
35-day outage window. The plan also would
save over $10 million in replacement power
coststhe penalty for extending the outage,
as was originally thought necessary.
Executing the plan, however, required the
team to make a series of carefully choreo-
graphed moves: move the MSRs from the
fabrication facility in Oklahoma to the plant
site in Michigan, move these large compo-
nents within the plant with access clearances
of less than 2 inches (Figure 4), and then
move the vessels to their final resting place
within a 1/8-inch tolerance.
Virtual toolbox
The plan was innovative and certainly cost-
effective, but the obstacles to success were
formidable. The team required months of
painstaking planning for every step of the
project. For example:
First, the as-built status of existing plant
equipment was meticulously mapped us-
ing laser surveying technology.
That data was then translated into a 3-D
design software package to enable the
team to plan vessel movements within the
allowable tolerances.
A virtual construction plan was developed
with 3-D animation that simulated the
heavy rigging path.
Next, design data and laser surveying
tools were used to determine the exact
dimensions required for the new vessels,
including nozzle locations for piping up
to 48 inches in diameter. The same virtual
tools were used to confirm that the ves-
sels could be maneuvered around existing
plant equipment.
Finally, the team was convinced that a
one-piece replacement approach was, in fact,
possible.
The outage began with removal of the
old vessels, which required cutting and ma-
chining dozens of piping connections and
removing structural platforms. The vessels
were then jacked from their foundations and
removed from their cubicles by two rail and
hydraulic slide systems.
Close tolerances
Installation of the new vessels required a full
array of specialized equipment not normally
encountered during a typical plant outage.
For example, a special rail car was adapted
to move the new vessels from Oklahoma to
Michigan; a modular lift tower and integrat-
ed slide system was designed and erected at
the site to move the new vessels from the rail
car up to and inside of the power plant; and
a unique cantilever lifting beam was used to
remove large concrete wall sections to pro-
vide access for the new vessels. In addition, a
specially engineered rigging path addressed
the available 2-inch clearance and the need
to lift the new components over the top of
the generator.
Once the MSRs were inside the plant, the
same hydraulic slide system used to remove
4. Tight squeeze. A new MSR begins its trek through the reinforced concrete wall with only 2 inches of clearance. Courtesy: Dave Mitchell,
DTE Energy photographic services
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POWER
|
November 2007 44
TOP PLANTS
the old vessels was used to ease the new ones
into their cubicles to the exact location re-
quired. The vessels were a perfect fit with
the existing plant piping, and the 800 pipe
welds were completed without incident (Fig-
ure 5). Structural platforms were modied or
replaced, and instrumentation and pipe insu-
lation was installed. Plant shielding was then
restored. Finally, the construction opening
was repaired.
A tight team
Washington Group is a valuable partner
at our Fermi plant, said Douglas Gipson,
who is recently retired but was executive
vice president and chief nuclear officer for
Detroit Edison during the project. The core
values of our two organizations are well
aligned. The Washington Group site team
has delivered best-in-class safety results
and has demonstrated outstanding owner-
ship of our business results. Together we
have employed exceptional teamwork in
support of the plant.
During the outage Washington Group
employed more than 950 craft and staff
workers. The MSR project was completed
with no lost-time and no OSHA recordable
injuries. This is just about the only time a
score of 0.0 means you are a winner. Thats
a safety record any contractor or plant man-
ager would envy.
This project demonstrated that excep-
tional planning and teamwork, plus a little
innovation when challenged with a first-of-
its-kind project, will achieve best-in-class
results. Kudos to the entire project team for
5. Perfect zero. The MSR project was completed early and with a perfect safety record.
Courtesy: Dave Mitchell, DTE Energy photographic services
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|
November 2007 46
TOP PLANTS
Fort Calhoun Nuclear
Generating Station,
Omaha, Nebraska
Owner/operator: Omaha Public Power District
Just under a year ago, Omaha Public Power District completed perhaps the
most complex nuclear power plant renovation in the history of the in-
dustry in a scant 85 daysfive fewer days than the original plan called
for. POWER recognizes Fort Calhoun Nuclear Generating Station as a Top
Plant for packing more work into one outage than was thought possible,
and then executing the plan ahead of schedule and below budget.
T
he nuclear industry consistently re-
duced its plant outage durations over
the past decade to the point where a 30-
day refueling outage now is considered the
norm. Enhanced outage planning skills were
put to the test when Omaha Public Power
Districts (OPPD) Fort Calhoun Nuclear
Generating Plant embarked on perhaps the
most complex nuclear renovation project in
the history of the industry.
Located on the shore of the Missouri
River, about 20 miles north of Omaha, Fort
Calhoun has a single generating unit with a
capacity of 478 MW. The plant, based on the
Combustion Engineering pressurized water
reactor (PWR) design, first went on-line on
August 9, 1973. The plants operating license
was recently renewed for another 20 years
(through 2033), although OPPD understood
that many upgrades would be required to en-
sure safe functioning of the plants systems
over the next 25-plus years.
Planning for Fort Calhouns 25th refuel-
ing outage and replacement project began
in the spring of 2006 with schedule reviews
conducted with all the contractors and sta-
tion personnel. Bechtel Power, with more
than 30 nuclear renovation projects under
its belt, was engaged by OPPD to manage
the project, which included more than 5,000
individual scheduled activities. Work was
scheduled 24/7, so contingency plans and
materials were developed for all major work
packages to ensure their success.
Past projects were studied, especially those
that had entailed two replacement outages,
in an effort to identify the best practices that
typically make the second replacement more
efficient than the first. Both formal and infor-
mal team-building sessions were conducted to
fully integrate all the contractors and station
personnel. To help unite the various stake-
holders into a single, cohesive team, OPPDs
project slogan was One Team, One Goal.
Big project, big challenges
The scope of work that was completed reads
much like a complete plant equipment list.
Inside the containment building the plants
two steam generators, reactor vessel head,
and coolant system pressurizer were re-
placed. It was the first time all those compo-
nents were replaced during a single outage.
All were manufactured in Japan and sent by
barge to the project site (Figure 1). (The main
condenser and moisture separators had been
replaced during a 2005 outage in preparation
for this outage.)
The team also installed upgraded rapid
fueling features, including a cable bridge,
and performed asbestos abatement on the
steam generators and pressurizer. Outside the
containment building, the plants main sta-
tion transformer and low-pressure turbines
were replaced. In addition to routine main-
tenance activities planned for every outage,
1. Ocean voyager. The new steam generators, pressurizer, and reactor vessel head
were manufactured by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and moved by barge to Fort Calhoun from
Japan. Courtesy: Bechtel Power
The industry would do well to examine
Fort Calhouns successful outage plan as
a potential template for the future.
046 TP_Nebraska.indd 46 11/5/07 4:21:44 PM
Come visit us at PowerGen booth #4957
www.proenergyservices.com
Its not just a team.
Its our team.
M I S S O U R I G E O R G I A T E X A S M E X I C O V E N E Z U E L A A R G E N T I N A T A N Z A N I A
POWER
|
November 2007 48
TOP PLANTS
one-third of the fuel assemblies in the reactor
core were replaced.
The project team encountered many
challenges, as would be expected with a
project of this magnitude. One of the more
interesting was making the penetration into
the containment building. As is typically
the case on nuclear renovation projects, it
was necessary at Fort Calhoun to cut a hole
high in the side of the containment build-
ing so that crews could remove and replace
components. In the case of Fort Calhoun,
the containment building had been installed
at the end of original plant construction,
effectively sealing in the components and
leaving only a small equipment hatch for
maintenance.
One challenge faced by Bechtel was that
this containment structure is the only one
in the U.S. with post-tensioned tendons ar-
ranged in four layers using a helical pattern,
with the tendons running in a curved diago-
nal from top to bottom. To cut the 15-foot-
diameter hole in the 4-foot-thick reinforced
concrete wall, Bechtel had to remove (and
subsequently replace) 68 tendons and deten-
sion an additional 40 tendonsmuch higher
numbers than the company had encountered
on other post-tensioned containment struc-
tures. The crew cut the hole in the shape of a
hexagon (Figure 2) to minimize the number
of tendons severed.
2. Make a carefully designed hole. Access through the containment vessel required workers to jackhammer concrete and cut rebar
to prepare the hexagonal opening. Courtesy: Bechtel Power
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POWER
|
November 2007 50
TOP PLANTS
Ups and downs
Inside the containment, the project team
faced more tests. The polar crane did not
have the capacity to lift the steam genera-
tors, and the spacing of the crane girders
combined with the limited height inside the
containment made it impractical to install a
temporary lifting device on top of the crane
girders. Instead, the team had to use a self-
erecting gantry system that traveled on rails
from one side of the containment to the other
to lift the steam generators (Figure 3). It was
the first time this method had been used on
a steam generator replacement in the U.S. In
addition, the steam generators and pressur-
izer were covered with asbestos insulation,
so OPPD had to remove the asbestos before
the components could be removed.
All these circumstancesadded to the
significant number of pipe welds required to
reconnect the systems, post-weld heat treat-
ments, nondestructive examinations, and
hundreds of support tasks such as design-
ing scaffolding and temporary systems for
power and airmade this outage the most
challenging ever undertaken.
The project staffing plan was a key ele-
ment in the projects success. More than 650
OPPD employees were supplemented by
more than 1,800 contract employees. OPPD
staff developed outage success teams to
handle contractor needs, from obtaining
parking permits to issuing badges and safety
equipment and completing initial contractor
training. In previous outages, running con-
tract employees through the indoctrination
program had taken about 50 hours. During
this outage it took only 32 hours.
Industry lessons
The lessons learned from OPPDs renova-
tion project have far-reaching consequences
for the next generation of nuclear plants.
We now know that multiple major pieces of
equipment can be placed in the containment
structure in very short order and that the work
can be controlled to meet a defined schedule
and budgetassuming that project manag-
ers commit to an equally detailed level of
outage planning. The industry would do well
to examine Fort Calhouns successful outage
plan as a potential template for the future,
when new construction schedules will need
to be significantly shortened if new projects
are ever to get off the drawing board.
OPPDs rigorous planning paid off. In ad-
dition to accomplishing the most challeng-
ing outage in the industry, the work at Fort
Calhoun was done safely with no lost-time
accidents and came in some $40 million be-
low the $417 million OPPD had budgeted.
The project was completed on December 3,
2006five days early.
3a. High-wire act. The new steam generator was raised 80 feet into the air, at the rate of
1 inch per minute, before being slid into the containment building. Courtesy: Bechtel Power
3b. Tight squeeze. The steam generator was winched into the containment building.
Courtesy: Bechtel Power
3c. Hold on tight. The new steam generator was then rigged by workers and lowered into
place. Courtesy: Bechtel Power
KEY QUESTION FOR THE FUTURE
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POWER
|
November 2007 52
NUCLEAR PLANTS MAP
Nuclear power plants
in the United States
052 Nuke_Map.indd 52 11/5/07 4:22:21 PM
November 2007
|
POWER 53
NUCLEAR PLANTS MAP
Nuclear plants
by status
Operating
Operating with
planned additions
Planned
Courtesy: Platts. Data source: Platts Energy Advantage and
POWERmap. All rights reserved.
052 Nuke_Map.indd 53 11/5/07 4:22:23 PM
|
November 2007 54
Plantwide data networks leverage
digital technology to the max
To make the most of their digital devices and enable the sharing of data by dif-
ferent departments, new and old plants alike need a reliable digital data
infrastructure.
By Timothy E. Hurst, PE, Hurst Technologies
A
lthough digital technology has per-
vaded industrial and postindustrial so-
cieties, power plants are not yet fully
reaping its benefits. Many individual process
control systems have gone digital, and even
nuclear plants are beginning to apply the
technology in nonsafety-related systems, but
most have not reaped the full benefits of an
integrated network.
In power plants, digital systems and net-
works dominate, or are common in, the func-
tional areas of communications, security,
operator support, and environmental health
and safety. However, for the most part these
key pieces of plant infrastructure are used
and managed by separate (and, often, dispa-
rate) departments. Reason: The systems and
networks were designed and implemented
independently, with little if any thought to
having them work in concert. Surprisingly,
thats often the case even for systems de-
signed for new plants.
Case in point: At several U.S. nuclear
plants, separate departments have deployed
their own data networks throughout the fa-
cility, at significant cost. At one plant, the
health physics department and the operations
group actually installed separate fiberoptic
networks at about the same time. Each proj-
ect cost over a million dollars.
Although fossil-fueled plants are not as
prone to silo disease, inattention to inte-
gration can lead to similar waste. More and
more plant functions now can be performed
better by digital systems, some with wire-
less capability. However, when different
departments act unilaterally to satisfy their
functionality needs, the result is multiple, in-
compatible networks.
Most designers of new fossil-fueled plants
have come to realize that siloed functions
and piecemeal integration are short-sighted
tactics that produce islands of automation,
which cannot deliver all of the benefits that
digital technology offers. Segregating func-
tionalities also works counter to a key goal of
plant design: ensuring that data systems are
robust, flexible, expandable, and upgradable
well into the future.
Its high time for the power generation
industry to recognize that digital control
and communications systems deserve to be
linked by a plantwide data network (PDN).
The PDNs role is similar to that of the plants
electrical distribution system: It provides the
backbone and protocols to support all digital
systems within the plant (and beyond, if it is
part of a fleet). Just as you wouldnt entrust
your electrical buses to the corporate IT de-
partment (becauseif for no other reason
real-time processing isnt ITs strength), the
PDN should be designed and managed as a
plant system, not just as another tentacle of
the corporate IT network.
In addition to process control (distrib-
uted control systems, programmable logic
controllers, etc.) and plant communications
(public address, radios, cell phones, pagers,
etc.), other functions that can benefit from
linking to the PDN backbone include:
Process monitoring (vibration and tem-
perature sensors, chemical monitors, pre-
dictive analytics and diagnostic systems).
Operator support (maintenance manage-
ment systems, logs of shifts and rounds).
Plant security (closed-circuit video cam-
eras, access-control and personnel track-
ing systems).
Supplemental monitoring/testing (nuclear
dosimetery, portable radiation monitors,
wireless sensors).
Its the network!
To get your mental arms around the concept
of a PDN, stop thinking about traditional
process control techniques and start think-
ing about how other industries, such as tele-
communications, use networks. The Verizon
television commercial with the geeky guy in
big black glasses and his crowd of network
specialists following the customer around is
an apt visual.
A high-speed PDN can move critical in-
formation into and out of digital systems in
near-real time and onto the screens of the
operators and engineers able to maximize its
utility. Though the capabilities of such net-
works were originally designed to meet the
needs of telecommunication carriers, they
have since expanded considerably. As the
major computer networking companies like
Cisco Systems and Hewlett-Packard have
upgraded the speed and refined the practical
implementation of such systems for indus-
trial applications, suppliers of process con-
trol and plant distributed control systems to
the power industry have been moving in the
same direction.
The basic foundation of a PDN is physi-
cal: its fiberoptic backbone (commonly
called a cable plant). Higher in the hierarchy
are multiple layers of physical and logical
networks. The physical networks embody
actual cable and wire and intelligent network
switches, while the functionality of the logi-
cal networks is defined by the programming
of switches to effect specific types of data
transfers at the right time.
In a telecom network, cell phone signals
The PDNs role is similar to that of
the plants electrical distribution system:
It provides the backbone and protocols to
support all digital systems within the plant
(and beyond, if it is part of a fleet).
054 PlantInfra.indd 54 11/5/07 4:22:34 PM
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POWER
|
November 2007 56
jump on and off the hard-wired landline net-
work as necessary. Similarly, a PDN should
provide connectivity for wired devices,
wireless devices and communications, and
enough bandwidth for expanded capabilities
in the future.
Nuclear PDN
Although the safety systems at a U.S. nuclear
plant probably wont be linked by a PDN any
time soon, designers of the nonsafety sys-
tems are already taking full advantage of the
technology. The figure shows a typical PDN
architecture that segregates a control net-
work, a performance network, and a support
network (all examples of physical networks)
but integrates all three via core switches to
allow plantwide sharing of the data and func-
tionality of all connected devices.
The topology shown is known as an in-
verted tree, with the core switches serving
as the trunk and the zone switches providing
the limbs extending throughout a plant. Core
switches are fed by redundant fail-safe pow-
er supplies, typically instrumentation-related
power sources. Zone switches generally re-
quire only one power supply, but they also
can also be dual-powered if necessary. Com-
ponents considered mission critical are
powered by two independent supplies. Each
of the three networks is itself fully redundant,
with dual fiberoptic cables running between
its core switches and zone switches.
Usually, devices on the control network
support the real-time operation of the plant
and thus are considered critical. Devices on
the other two networks are deemed less im-
portant. The performance network typically
plays two roles: keeping track of long-term
plant performance and handling monitor-
ing of less-critical equipment. The support
network provides two important, but less-
time-critical, functions: plantwide commu-
nications and integration of all the plants
diagnostic and maintenance-related systems.
The figure illustrates only one possible
PDN topology. Other architectures may be
better suited to the layout of a specific plant
and/or the extent of its wireless networks.
They include the STAR, point-to-point, and
mesh configurations, each of which has ad-
vantages and disadvantages. The PDN repre-
sentation shown in the figure was included
in a recent utility application for a combined
construction and operating license (COL) for
a new nuclear unit.
Diagnostic capabilities are inherent in
modern digital networks because people and
machines are increasingly dependent on the
data they deliver. As traffic increases, so does
the importance of availability and maintain-
ing bandwidth. PDNs that use high-band-
width fiberoptic cables and modular network
switches are the most reliable, as well as the
most scalable to meet expanded needs for
data and voice (and video) in the future.
New plant to old: Can we talk?
A presentation at this Junes annual ISA/
EPRI Power Industry Symposium provided
a peek at the promising future of PDNs at
fossil-fueled plants. It describes how Lower
Desktop PCs Desktop PCs
Corporate IT
Firewall(s)
Support network
Control network
Performance network
Plant site network
Firewall
Corporate
network
Core
switches
Zone switches
Zone switches
Zone switches
Core
switches
Core
switches
Plant
system
Video systems
(O&M, health physics)
Printers
Printers
Communication
systems
(public address, phone, maint.)
Maintenance
workstations
Process
information
servers
Wireless
communication
(cell, PDA, radio)
(O&M, health physics)
Network
monitoring
system
Process and equipment
monitoring systems
Long-term historian(s)
plant data repository
Gateways
(computer system
and digital equipment)
Emergency
response
facilities
Engineering
workstation
Control
processors and
I/O general and
dedicated control
processors (CP) and I/O
Feedwater
heater level
control CP
Transmitters
Valves
Switchgear
Fieldbus
Control room
printers
Operator
workstations
Panel-
mounted
operator
workstations
Supplemental
control room
displays
Can you hear me now? A layered plantwide data network for wireless communications and sharing of equipment control and perfor-
mance data. Source: Hurst Technologies
POWER
|
November 2007 58
Colorado River Authority (LCRA) integrat-
ed the digital control and communications
infrastructures of a state-of-the-art plant it
had recently acquired with those of a nearby
power plant it had owned and operated for
40 years.
Three years after acquiring the two-year-
old Lost Pines Power Park in 2003, LCRA in-
tegrated its facilities (and staff) with those of
Sim Gideon Power Plant, whose three units
were commissioned between 1965 and 1972
(see POWER, June 2007, p. 22). Eventually,
LCRA would like the two plants to share the
same communications infrastructure, so the
combined staff can conduct day-to-day op-
erations at both sites.
The first step toward that goal was the in-
stallation of a layered WiMax/WiFi wireless
communications infrastructure covering both
plants. The protocols were chosen largely to
future-proof the system against technol-
ogy obsolescence. The systemdeveloped
jointly by the asset performance manage-
ment specialist Invensys Process Systems
(www.ips.invensys.com) and the industrial
wireless networking specialist Apprion Inc.
(www.apprion.com)is reportedly the first
of its kind deployed at a large power station.
The system has the following features:
A 360-degree WiMax umbrella plant-
wide wireless network accessible by the
entire site. It is powered by wide- and
medium-bandwidth transceivers, logical
integration terminals (which physically
connect to the existing fiber IT systems at
both plants), and WiFi access points.
A wireless plant intercom system with
push to talk capabilities. It integrates
with a PBX (private branch exchange) us-
ing VoIP (voice over Internet protocol).
The use of wireless communication
badges and noise-cancelling headsets by
staffers.
WiMax connectivity to a remote fuel oil
tank farm.
Although the initial deployment simply
focused on providing a common communica-
tions infrastructure for the staffs of two plants
of very different vintage, LCRAs plans for
future use of the wireless PDN are what make
it noteworthy. The following functionalities
are currently envisioned: noncritical closed-
loop level controls and alarming for auxiliary
plant equipment, equipment health and con-
dition monitoring, and remote video surveil-
lance. Others will undoubtedly follow, after
the system demonstrates what it can do best.
Only the beginning
With digital systems now common in new
and old power plants alike, the need to collect
and communicate more information reliably
continues to grow. One way to make a plant
more competitive is to seek new and better
ways to improve the performance of equip-
ment and the productivity of personnel.
Recent history makes clear that digital
controls and wireless communication are
quite capable of helping plant owners achieve
both goals. If they are to support the digital
systems, digital networks must no longer be
treated as afterthoughts by utility manage-
ment; they should be designed and managed
with the same care that other plant systems
receive because they are equally important.
Although digital networks are new by power
industry standards, they are maturing quickly
and now command more attention during the
design and operation of both fossil-fueled
and nuclear power plants.
Timothy E. Hurst, PE (timh@hursttech
.com) is president of Hurst Technologies
(www.hcinc.com), a consulting engineer-
ing firm specializing in instrumentation
and control systems for nuclear and
fossil-fueled power stations. He also is a
POWER contributing editor.
REACH
more generating company
decision makers than at
ANY other power industry
event i n the U. S.
May 6 8, 2008 Baltimore Convention Center
www.electricpowerexpo.com
|
November 2007 60
NUCLEAR UPGRADES
Upgrade your BWR recirc pumps
with adjustable-speed drives
The U.S. is home to more than 30 boiling water reactors of BWR-3 through -6
vintage. At one time or another, all have experienced obsolescence, reli-
ability, or control problems with their reactor recirculation flow control
systems and components. Temporary down-powers are often required
for corrective maintenance. Exelon Nuclear plans to begin upgrading the
recirculation pump motor drives at its BWRs in the spring of 2009. The
upgrade projects technical design and business case were developed in
great detail before the project was approved. This article presents the
results of all key internal analyses.
By James W. Morgan, Exelon Nuclear
C
ontrolling the power output of a boil-
ing water reactor (BWR)such as
Exelon Nuclears Quad Cities Unit 1
or 2 (Figure 1)requires changing the reac-
tivity of the core by repositioning the control
rods and controlling coolant flow through
the core.
For a given control rod line, increasing
flow causes steam bubbles (voids) to be re-
duced, which increases the amount of liquid
water in the core. With more liquid available,
more neutrons are slowed down (moderated)
to a speed suitable for splitting fissile fuel.
More fission means more thermal power.
Decreasing flow through the core has the op-
posite effect on power output.
When a BWR is operating on the so-
called 100% rod line, its power output
can be varied from roughly 70% to 100% of
maximum rating by varying the speed of the
recirculation pumps or by throttling a flow
control valve.
The BWRs of interest in the U.S.the
BWR-3 through -6 designshave two re-
circulation loops (Figure 2). Each loop has
one pump whose flow is controlled by either
of two systems: a motor-generator (M-G) set
that uses large, medium-voltage induction
motors to drive the recirc pumps or a flow-
control valve design. Either system provides
controllable recirculation flow through the
reactor core.
The earlier (BWR-3 and BWR-4) designs
use M-G sets. This control design allows
variable adjustment of motor voltage and fre-
quency and uses a voltage regulator to keep
their ratio constant. The motor, operating at
medium voltage, drives the generator through
a fluid coupling that acts like a clutch. The
speed and output of the generator rise and fall
as the volume of fluid in the coupling is var-
Reactor building (secondary containment) Turbine building
Drywell
(primary
containment)
Reactor
core
Recirculation
pump
Torus
Jet
pumps
Steam to
turbine-generator
Feedwater
Control
rods
2. Gone fission. A simplified diagram of a typical BWR plant and the recirculation loops
that control the thermal output of the reactor. The pumps flow controls were the subject of an
extensive upgrade option analysis by Exelon Nuclear. Source: Exelon Nuclear
1. First in line. Exelon Nuclears Quad Cities Unit 1 will have its reactor recirculation flow
control systems upgraded with electronic adjustable-speed drives in the spring of 2009. Cour-
tesy: Exelon Nuclear
060 NucUp.indd 60 11/5/07 4:52:39 PM
November 2007
|
POWER 61
ied by changing the position of a scoop tube,
or weir. As the generators output increases or
decreases, the speed of the recirc pump follows
suit. Figure 3 shows an M-G set from Quad
Cities Nuclear Generating Station in Illinois.
The flow-control valve design is standard
at the later BWR-5 and BWR-6 plants, which
also use an M-G set to power the pump at low
frequency (15 Hz) and low speed (25% of
maximum). A direct connection of the pump
motor to the medium-voltage source provides
for a faster speed at line frequency (60 Hz).
A modulating flow-control valve in the loop
adjusts the recirculation flow as required.
High time to upgrade
Both control designs have exhibited prob-
lems that have resulted in excessive main-
tenance costs, generating inefficiencies, and
enough loss of control to warrant a unit de-
rate. Making matters worse, spare parts have
become scarce, which has resulted in extend-
ed outages for unplanned repairs.
Among the parts of both designs that
have become troublesome are flywheels,
scoop tubes, voltage regulators, and scoop
tube positioners. Backups for those compo-
nents (if available), as well as large inven-
tories of M-G lubricating oils, fluid for the
coupling, hydraulic fluid for control valve
power units and shuttle valves, and genera-
tor brushes must be kept on the shelf. Spare
parts for auxiliary lube oil, cooling water,
and ventilating systems also must be kept
on hand.
Within the reactor building, the primary
piping and pump pressure boundaries are
critical to safety, but the power and instru-
mentation portions of the water recirculation
systems are not. However, their fault toler-
ance and obsolete components have caused
reliability problems at several BWRs. Spe-
cifically, the old electromechanical analog
technology used to control the speed of re-
circ pumps is vulnerable to hysteresis, sensi-
tive to temperature, and prone to hunting
due to mechanical dead bands and a limited
range of output frequencies. Any of these
conditions can reduce a units capacity fac-
tor, a key measure of its performance.
Cheaper by the dozen
Solid-state static power convertersalso
known as variable-frequency drives or ad-
justable-speed drives (ASDs)represent
the state-of-the-art technology suitable for
replacing the M-G sets. Like M-Gs, ASDs
generate a signal whose voltage and fre-
quency are continuously adjustable at a
constant ratio, but they do so with no mov-
ing parts (with the exception of small pumps
and fans for a closed-loop cooling water
3. Long in the tooth. A typical M-G set for controlling a BWR-3 recirculation pump.
Courtesy: Exelon Nuclear
Exelon Nuclears U.S. BWR fleet. Source: Exelon Nuclear
Plant name Location Capacity (MW)
Clinton Nuclear Generating Station Illinois 1 x 1,043
Dresden Nuclear Power Plant Illinois 2 x 912
La Salle County Nuclear Generating Station Illinois 2 x 1,140
Limerick Nuclear Power Plant Pennsylvania 2 x 1,200
Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station New Jersey 1 x 656
Peach Bottom Nuclear Generating Station Pennsylvania 2 x 1,093
Quad Cities Nuclear Generating Station Illinois 2 x 870
NUCLEAR UPGRADES
060 NucUp.indd 61 11/5/07 4:52:41 PM
POWER
|
November 2007 62
NUCLEAR UPGRADES
system). The beauty of this recirc pump up-
grade option is that the recirc pumps, mo-
tors, and motor cables should not require
modification.
Exelon Nuclears design philosophy is
Design Once, Install Many. Accordingly,
a key goal of the process of choosing a re-
placement for the M-Gs was to select an
ASD system design and product compatible
with similar medium-voltage applications
across its fleet. Doing so would minimize
costs by allowing the sharing of spare parts
and O&M experience. Across Exelon Nu-
clears fleet of 12 BWRs (see table), the
design voltages of existing M-G sets, rat-
ed from 5,770 hp to 8,900 hp, range from
4,160V to 6,900V.
Although the recirc pump speed control
system is not critical to safety, it is essential
to production and therefore requires high
reliability and minimal points of single
failure. Exelon Nuclear evaluated three ba-
sic system design concepts, each of which
assumed that a single-train ASD will have
either a very low probability of failure or
inherent redundancy:
Two ASDs with redundant power trains,
one for each of the two recirculation
pumps (Figure 4a).
Two primary ASDs with a swing drive
that can pick up the load from one of the
primary units in the event of a trip (Fig-
ure 4b).
Two single-train ASDs (Figure 4c).
The basis of the redundant power train
concept is that the two parallel power cell
trains would share the recirculation pumps
electrical load. If a power cell in one of
the trains were to fail, the remaining train
would pick up the full load, satisfying the
minimal points of single failure criterion.
However, such a system was ruled out be-
cause it would have been unique in the U.S.
nuclear industry. Note also from Figure 4a
that eight large circuit breakers or vacuum
contactors would have to be added as part
of the design, and they would consume a lot
of floor space. The design has one upside:
It would allow on-line maintenance of the
power cells.
The swing-drive concept would require
use of a complicated scheme to swap over
to the swing ASD (Figure 4b, center) the
pump driven by a failed primary ASD while
it was coasting down. The speed lost by the
affected pump would depend on how long
it took to make the swap. During the design
evaluations, it was suggested that it would
take between 200 msec and 3 seconds, but
that range was never verified by testing.
Like redundant power trains, the swing-
A
S
D
B
B
A
S
D
B
B
B B
M
A
S
D
B
B
A
S
D
B
B
M
Medium-voltage bus
60-Hz 3-phase
Medium-voltage bus
60-Hz 3-phase
Existing
breaker
Redundant
drives
Existing
breaker
New
Pump motor A Pump motor B
Notes: Load-sharing and transfer scheme logic required. ASD = adjustable-speed drive.
a. Redundant power train drive concept
A
S
D
B
B
M
A
S
D
B
B
A
S
D
M
B B
B B
Medium-voltage bus
60-Hz 3-phase
Medium-voltage bus
60-Hz 3-phase
Existing Existing
Swing drive
New
Notes: Load-sharing and transfer scheme required, use as an installed spare.
b. Swing drive concept
A
S
D
B B
M
A
S
D
M
B B
Some designs may use redundant breakers
Existing
breaker
Existing
breaker
Notes: NC = normally closed, NO = normally open. Cell bypass circuitry can maintain full operation of the drive
system, with up to two power cells out of service. Bypassing additional cells would require de-rating.
NC NC NO NO
c. ASD with bypass feature concept
4. Choose your weapon. Three conceptual options for upgrading recirc pumps with
adjustable-speed drives. Source: Exelon Nuclear
060 NucUp.indd 62 11/5/07 4:52:43 PM
November 2007
|
POWER 63
NUCLEAR UPGRADES
drive concept had never been implemented
in a nuclear power plant. It had the same
upsideallowing on-line power cell main-
tenanceand a similar downside: A lot
of plant floor space or a large power dis-
tribution center would be required for the
installation of three drives. However, the
swing-drive configuration also was ruled
out for a very good reason: Failure of any
of the eight breakers in the system (six new
and two existing) would cause the swap to
fail.
The dual single-train ASD system (Fig-
ure 4c), using solid-state power trains with
a statistically low failure frequency, would
be more reliable than the existing M-G set
design. Its big downside is not allowing on-
line power cell maintenance. However, such
maintenance should not be needed if the
cells mean time to recovery is reasonably
short (one shift or less).
Even though the twin ASDs would be
more efficient and require less preventive
maintenance and consumables than an M-G
set, engineers decided that the basic design
was insufficiently robust. They then ad-
dressed that shortcoming by insisting that the
drives have a cell bypass feature to maintain
their voltage output even if one or two power
cells were to fail.
And the winner is . . .
The design concept shown in Figure 4c was
the final choice for its simplicity, relative
compactness, and high reliability. The ASD
selected was the Robicon Perfect Harmony,
Model WCIII, medium-voltage (2,300V to
14,400V) drive from Siemens Automation
and Drives (www.siemens.com/medium
-voltage-converter). As specified, the drives
patented power cell bypass feature allows
full operation of the recirculation pump
with one or two power cells failed and by-
passed. The WCIII nomenclature signifies
that the drive (Figure 5) is a water-cooled,
third-generation unit.
The Perfect Harmony ASD is a modular
unit with two inverters. One uses pulse-width
modulation, a diode rectifier, and a DC filter
inductor/link capacitor; the other is a con-
ventional, multistep voltage source inverter.
Insulated-gate bipolar transistors are the ac-
tive components of inverter circuits.
Unlike other ASDs, this one does not
require the use of input and output isola-
tion transformers, input or output harmonic
filters, dV/dt filters, isolation breakers, or
power factor compensation. Thats because
its integral transformer with phase-shifted
secondaries provides 18-pulse or better in-
put harmonic cancellation with an expected
power factor of 0.97 under any operating
conditions. One can expect the Robicon Per-
fect Harmony drive to be available between
99.99% and 99.999% of the time.
The cell bypass feature enables the ASD
to provide full power to the pump in the
event of a power cell failure. When the con-
trol systema Model NxG II, also from
5. Compact recirc pump drive. The water-cooled Robicon Perfect Harmony medium-
voltage adjustable-speed drive was chosen primarily for the high system reliability afforded by
its cell bypass feature. The third-generation design integrates the NxG II control system, also
from Siemens Automation and Drives. Source: Exelon Nuclear
Input cable cabinet
Input transformer
Fuse/pre-charge/control cabinet
Power cells Output cable cabinet Cooling system cabinet
INTEK, Inc.
Westerville, Ohio
Toll Free: 888-743-6822
E-mail: sales@intekflow.com
www.intekflow.com
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The RheoVac System monitors the condenser to identify specific per-
formance issues. Call Intek today to learn how you can control excess
back pressure, heat rate and dissolved gases using RheoVac technology.
060 NucUp.indd 63 11/5/07 4:52:44 PM
POWER
|
November 2007 64
NUCLEAR UPGRADES
Siemens Automation and Drivesdetects
such a failure, it calculates the magnitude
of the phase shift and voltage adjustment
needed to keep the ASDs reduced output
balanced. The bypass circuits salient fea-
ture is its overrating of the nominal design
output voltage, which maintains the reduced
but balanced output greater than the voltage
required for 100% motor speed. The mo-
tor current is momentarily removed during
the calculation and adjustment process. By
contrast, the motor speed is reduced by 10%
but reapplied with the new balanced output
within about 250 milliseconds.
This ASD has been used widely and suc-
cessfully in the petrochemicals industry.
One Perfect Harmony unit at a chemical
plant operated continuously for five years
without ever having to be derated. As men-
tioned earlier, although the system of two
single-train ASDs does not allow on-line
maintenance of power cells, the need for
it should not be critical because one power
cell failure will not result in a tripped or de-
rated ASD.
Designed for reliability
Each ASD in the final system design has re-
dundant commutator-inverter NxG II proces-
sors. Either processor can act as the primary
or secondary controller because both can be
configured with the ASD parameters, sys-
tem control algorithms, and the controller
swapover scheme.
Redundant supervisory controllersSie-
mens S7-400H unitswill interface the
drive system to the existing reactor recir-
culation flow control system (RRCS) at
the plant to be upgraded. The controllers
are fault-tolerant and self-diagnostic. Re-
dundant power sources are required for all
the control systems and control subsystems.
Figure 6 illustrates a typical dual Profibus,
fault-tolerant control system architecture
with redundant remote I/O suitable for such
an application. An alternate design would
provide dual network communications us-
ing the existing RRCS. A third option would
combine remote I/O and network commu-
nications. Its worth noting that these re-
dundant control systems have no points of
single failure.
Each ASD has a self-contained, closed-
loop cooling water system. Redundant
pumps and instrumentation make these sys-
tems highly reliable. Other than the common
cooling water piping, which has a very low
probability of failure, the cooling system is
single-point failure-proof.
Other design considerations
Besides reliability and the ability to adjust
motor control voltage and frequency, the
major considerations for upgrading the re-
circ pump drive system at a particular BWR
include available floor space, floor loading,
{
{
Profibus DP
Ethernet TCP/IP Hardwired I/O
Proprietary synchronous serial link, 8-bit with 10-sec update over fiber
Notes: ASD = adjustable-speed drive, FPC = fuse/pre-charge/control cabinet, HMI = human/machine interface, I/O = input/output, PLC = programmable logic controller,
RRCS = reactor recirculation flow control system.
ASD A
Cooling cabinet FPC Transformer
Cooling system
I/O
HMI
PLC
HMI
PLC A PLC B
Ethernet switch
NxG II
processor
NxG II
processor
Fiberoptic
switch
Remote I/O Remote I/O
Remote I/O Remote I/O
Remote I/O
Input
protection
Pre-charge
contactors
Main control room
ASD simulator/workstation
P
o
w
e
r

c
e
l
l

c
o
n
t
r
o
l
,

a
i
r

a
n
d

w
a
t
e
r

t
e
m
p
s
,

e
t
c
.
To ASD B
Other plant
peripherals
Plant RRCS HMI
Air and water
temp I/O
Ethernet
6. Control connections. The ASD control architecture for a remote I/O system design with network communications. Source: Exelon
Nuclear
060 NucUp.indd 64 11/5/07 4:52:46 PM
FOR MORE DETAILS VISIT WWW.DARATECHPLANT.COM OR CONTACT KIM ARELLANO AT
832.242.1969 EXT. 313 OR KIMA@TRADEFAIRGROUP.COM
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060 NucUp.indd 65 11/5/07 4:52:46 PM
POWER
|
November 2007 66
NUCLEAR UPGRADES
cable and raceway quantities, the ease of in-
terfacing with existing plant systems, heat
sink design parameters, and loading effects
on ventilation systems and fire detection/
suppression systems. If plant real estate is
at a premium, a dedicated ASD outbuilding
may be a viable option. The use of such a
structure would minimize construction with-
in an operating plant and, if it were strate-
gically placed, could shorten needed cables
and raceways.
Replacing existing M-G sets and their
ancillary equipment presents several chal-
lenges. If the outage scheduled to perform
the work is long enough, and cranes and per-
sonnel do not compete for laydown space,
the old equipment can be removed and the
new ASDs can be placed in the same gen-
eral area. This would likely minimize needed
quantities of new cable and raceway. It may
be possible to do some of the installation
work (but not tie-in or commissioning) be-
fore the outage begins.
Special analyses required
For an ASD upgrade to a nuclear power
plant, some special analyses are required to
satisfy the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Com-
mission (NRC). For example, the plant
owner must perform a reanalysis of licensed
events to determine the effect of changing
the motive sources of the recirculation pump
motors from M-G sets to ASDs. The analysis
must show that the effects are bounded by
existing analyses; if they are not, the planned
modification must be submitted to the NRC
for approval prior to implementation. Exelon
Nuclear anticipates that the reanalyses will
show that the retrofitted systems are indeed
bounded by existing analyses.
Following are some of the specific im-
pacts of an ASD upgrade that would require
an analysis/evaluation:
Unlike M-G sets, ASDs do not provide
electrical inertia for pump/motor coast-
down. So coastdowns will be quicker for
some trip scenarios.
ASDs are not mechanically limited by the
25%/second fluid coupler, as M-G sets
are. The effect of this freedom on tran-
sient flow increases must be considered.
Because ASDs can deliver higher-fre-
quency voltages than M-G sets do, over-
frequency situations are a possibility
(M-G sets use a mechanical stop to avoid
them). Although software is typically used
to limit ASD output frequencies, external
frequency-sensing relays must be ready to
step in if the program fails.
An ASD can apply braking action to a re-
circ pump motor; an M-G set cannot. If an
ASD malfunction triggers this braking ac-
tion, its negative effects should be limited
to a pump trip and coastdown, or a pump
seizure.
ASDs have motor reversing capabilities.
Even the failure of an ASD that is not
enabled may cause a motor reversal. Ac-
cordingly, an ASD upgrade must include
the installation of motor management re-
lays (to trip the motors upon a phase re-
versal) and the implementation of other
motor protection parameters.
The M-G sets at earlier, BWR-3 and -4
plants operate over the same continuous fre-
quency range (and, hence, over the same speed
range) as the ASDs. However, the flow-con-
trol valves at later, BWR-5 and -6 plants oper-
ate (other than during transients) at only two
speeds: 25% and 100%. Upgrading to ASDs
will enable the recirc pump motor drives of
those reactors to operate over the same con-
tinuous range as their predecessors.
This change requires performing hydrau-
lic analyses of recirculation flow sensing line
vibrations and of dead-leg pressure oscilla-
tions from side-branch harmonics (see p. 72
for more information on pressure-sensing is-
sues) because the sensing lines in question
are inside the reactor. Modifications to sens-
ing line clamps/supports or dead legs may be
required as well. The analyses and any mods
should be done at least one outage prior to
the outage for installing the ASD upgrade.
Field surveys can provide valuable as-built
input data for these analyses; if possible, they
should be done at least two outages prior to
the upgrade outage.
For fundamental guidance on the opera-
tion, selection, and application of medium-
voltage (2,400V to 13,800V) ASDs, refer to
IEEE Standard 958-2003. Harmonics analy-
sis and testing should be done in accordance
with ANSI/IEEE 519: Recommended Prac-
tices and Requirements for Harmonic Con-
trol in Electrical Power Systems.
Finally, an ASD upgrade should be ac-
companied by a torsional analysis, to identi-
fy any harmful torques and vibrations on the
shafts of all motors and drive equipment at
all speeds under normal and abnormal con-
ditions. This analysis usually is performed
using a computer model containing criti-
cal speed points, natural frequencies, mode
shapes, steady-state operating torques over
the entire speed range, oscillating component
harmonics, transient torques, and stresses
during acceleration and deceleration of the
drive through its mechanical resonance fre-
quency. Among the corrective actions that
can alleviate or eliminate torsional problems
are installing energy-absorbing couplings or
oil lift bearings, and machining shafts to re-
duce their stress levels.
Have other reactors
upgraded to ASDs?
The answer is yes. Thats important, because
plants considering the same modification can
benefit from lessons learned by the pioneers
and from their operating and maintenance
experience.
Specifically, Energy Northwests 1,157-
MW Columbia Generating Station ret-
rofitted load-commutated inverter-type
ASDs for its recirculation pumps in the
mid-1990s. Tennessee Valley Authoritys
(TVAs) Browns Ferry Nuclear (BFN) Plant
also installed three Perfect Harmony Model
WCII units (the predecessor of the WCIII)
between 2003 and 2005 and has since ac-
cumulated more than eight years of oper-
ating experience on them. Siemens made
about 50 changes to the WCII based on les-
sons learned from the BFN installation by
a TVA users group. Finally, Southern Nu-
clears Plant Hatch and Progress Energys
Brunswick Plant have purchased the Perfect
Harmony WCIII drives and have begun de-
signing them into systems scheduled for in-
stallation in the spring of 2009.
Examine your business case
Because the new ASDs are more efficient
than M-G sets, they should reduce house
loads. This reduction for Quad Cities Unit
1 is anticipated to be 2.5 MW. Although the
expected improvement in system reliability
from the upgrade is harder to quantify, it
should be significant, as should the reduc-
tion in maintenance costs. Fuel savings also
should be realized because, unlike M-G sets,
ASDs can deliver full flow at the end of the
nuclear fuel cycle.
Exelon Nuclear has concluded that a proj-
ect to upgrade from M-G sets or flow-con-
trol valves to ASDs will deliver a positive net
present value and a very attractive internal
rate of return, with typical business case as-
sumptions. How good would the economics
be at your BWR? Youll have to do your own
analyses that take into account the particu-
lars of your plant. But at Exelon Nuclear, the
results of in-depth studies convinced corpo-
rate management that adding ASDs at Quad
Cities in the spring of 2009, and at the re-
mainder of its BWR fleet in the future, is an
excellent idea.
James W. Morgan
(james.morgan@exeloncorp.com) is a
principal engineer for instrumentation
and control with ILD Inc.
(www.ildpower.com). On assignment
to Exelon Nuclears corporate
engineering department, he is the
lead engineer responsible for Exelons
fleetwide upgrade of reactor recircula-
tion pump flow control systems.
060 NucUp.indd 66 11/5/07 4:52:48 PM
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060 NucUp.indd 67 11/5/07 4:52:49 PM
|
November 2007 68
NUCLEAR UPGRADES
Defined scope,
experienced team essential
to nuclear I&C upgrade projects
Over the past few years, U.S. nuclear power plants have begun replacing their
obsolete analog control systems with digital control systems. Many of
these projects have been completed successfully, yielding a tidy return
on investment in the form of increased generation. However, some have
encountered difficulties, which resulted in cost overruns and schedule de-
lays. This minority of projects may have eroded the industrys confidence
in digital upgrade projects, but a well-run project is still one of your best
options for squeezing the last drop of performance out of your plant.
By Roy Raychaudhuri, Sargent & Lundy, and Doug Beach, Energy Northwest
T
he January 2007 issue of POWER
included an article (Tow nuclear
power I&C out of the digital ditch )
describing instrumentation and control
(I&C) upgrade projects at nuclear power
plants as stalled and checkered, at best.
To be sure, some projects have experienced
technical problems and may have missed
their budget and/or schedule. But they are
anomalies and are not indicative of a wide-
spread problem in the nuclear industry, as
the author suggests.
Fully recognizing that the article was ad-
dressing unit-specific design and manage-
ment issues, we would like to offer a few
case studies of successful projects and invite
others to do the same. In this way, we can
together learn to capitalize on the real suc-
cesses in the industry.
In general, a successful project begins
at the highest management level at a plant
with a definitive statement of the busi-
ness objectives and a well-defined plan for
procurement, design, testing, installation,
training, and operation. Its our position that
properly organized and staffed I&C projects
can be implemented successfully. This ar-
ticle presents case studies of three success-
ful upgrade projects at nuclear plants. Each
case covers the scope, approach, and details
of the project and explains why it should be
considered a success (see box).
Case study #1: Turbine controls
upgrade at Energy Northwests
Columbia station
The old digital electro-hydraulic (DEH)
turbine control system at Columbia Gener-
ating Station (Figure 1), a 1,250-MW boil-
ing water reactor (BWR), was obsolete and
not single-failure-tolerant. Component and
subsystem failures had resulted in unit trips,
power reductions, load swings, and opera-
tion in manual control for extended periods
of time.
To resolve these problems, Energy North-
west replaced the old DEH control system
Defining success
How do we know that a nuclear con-
trols upgrade project has been success-
ful? Every project has specific standards
that differ between plants. In baseball,
a successful team is usually good at ex-
ecuting the fundamentals. In the case of
I&C upgrades, success derives from good
management of project details. We be-
lieve that any successful upgrade project
needs to meet minimum quality standards
and be completed within its budget and
on time.
Meet minimum quality standards.
Quality standards are defined by the
projects documented technical objec-
tives that all stakeholders must approve.
Problems will inevitably arise, but unless
they are resolved, systems cannot oper-
ate as designed. If systems dont work as
planned, a project isnt meeting minimum
quality standards.
Complete within budget. Generally,
installation cost is the largest component
of a projects total cost and is also prone
to escalation. Therefore, it is imperative
that the plant owner scrutinize this area
early in the process to allow total cost to
be managed effectively. Among the cost-
management techniques that have proven
effective are these two:
Design to cost, which requires devel-
oping a target cost during a projects
conceptual stage and then checking
and validating the feasibility of meet-
ing that cost several times during the
design phase.
Focusing on installation costs during the
design phase, in order to minimize total
project cost. For many complex projects,
installation cost can be reduced by pro-
viding more design details. However,
providing more details incurs its own
costs, making tradeoffs necessary.
Complete on time. Adhering to sched-
ulesespecially those for completing in-
stallation and testing within the duration
of the planned refueling outageis criti-
cal. Slippages adversely impact both the
cost and quality of a project. Schedules
must account for unforeseen delays in
equipment deliveries and the time needed
to resolve issues that inevitably are raised
by factory acceptance and post-installa-
tion tests.
068 NukeUp_Controls.indd 68 11/5/07 4:23:25 PM
November 2007
|
POWER 69
NUCLEAR UPGRADES
with a new, state-of-the-art system that is
single-fault-tolerant and can be repaired on-
line. The new system employs redundant in-
put signal devices, redundant digital signal
processors, and redundant output devices.
It also features improved control algorithms
and start-up and shutdown control proce-
dures, and provides additional information
on turbine-generator performance to opera-
tors and engineers.
On a fast track. A key objective of the
replacement project was to complete it dur-
ing a refueling outage scheduled to occur
13 months after the contract award to the
control system vendor. Meeting such a tight
schedule without compromising the quality
of work was a major challenge.
Replacing the control system and related
input/output (I/O) devices required making
the following changes:
Replacing the five DEH cabinets in the
main control room with four new cabinets
containing the redundant control equip-
ment and I/O, a new turbine overspeed
protection circuit, and new digital syn-
chronizing and load control equipment.
Replacing the switches, indicators, and
recorders on the main control board with
touchscreen displays.
Installing new turbine control system
hardware and software on the existing op-
erator training simulator.
Installing seven new speed sensors: three
for speed control, three for overspeed pro-
tection, and one spare.
Connecting the new turbine controls to the
plants distributed control system (DCS)
through a firewall.
Energy Northwests management team
realized that executing such a large and
complex project on such an aggressive time-
line would require close coordination of all
participants work. Accordingly, among the
project management tools put to use were
a single integrated schedule, an integrated
project action tracking list, and a common
weekly meeting for all organizations. The
formation of a dedicated project team was
followed by establishment of a formal divi-
sion of work and a formal work sequence.
The controls vendor chosen was Inven-
sys (www.invensys.com), which supplied its
TMR (triple-modular redundant) Tricon tur-
bomachinery control system for integrated
turbine protection and reactor pressure con-
trol. The Tricon TMR system also executes
an all-new turbine trip control scheme whose
inputs include digitally delivered measure-
ments of lube oil parameters, thrust, vacuum,
and overspeed. The Tricon system brings to-
gether more than 600 critical monitoring and
control system I/O points from the plants
turbine and generator.
On this project, Sargent & Lundy (www
.sargentlundy.com) provided a range of en-
gineering services that included a conceptual
study, specification development, bid evalu-
ation, a plant modification package, proce-
dural updates, installation and test support,
and project management assistance.
Strategy. The projects overall strategy
was to perform as much pre-outage instal-
lation work as possible within the confines
of an operating plant. That work included
the installation of conduits and cable pulls
in areas accessible with the plant on-line.
Work during the refueling outage included
the removal of existing DEH cabinets from
the control room and installation of speed
probes, thrust probes, pressure transmitters,
and linear variable differential transformers
(LVDTs). It also included installation of new
cabinets in the control room and installation
of operator workstations with touchscreens
in the main control board and on the lead
operators desk.
Formal test or validation procedures were
developed for each phase of the project and
successfully completed before moving on to
the next phase. They included:
Factory acceptance tests of original equip-
ment
Testing of software and touchscreens
(performed on the plant simulator)
Modification and power ascension tests
Site acceptance tests following installa-
tion of the complete system
Regarding the projects speed of execu-
tion, W. Scott Oxenfordvice president of
technical services at Energy Northwest
noted that, its most remarkable aspect
was the timeline of design and implemen-
tation. In March 2006 we issued the Lim-
ited Notice to Proceed to Invensys and had
our initial on-site kick-off meeting with all
present. Only 10 months later, the system
was installed in the simulator, ready to sup-
port two cycles of operator training. Six
months after that, the system was operating
with precision.
Through the use of sound project man-
agement methods and tools, selection of the
right project team, and remaining focused
on the objectives, this complex digital up-
1. Death of DEH. Engineers at Energy Northwests Columbia Generating Station replaced the plants digital electro-hydraulic control sys-
tem with a new, fully digital one that is single-fault-tolerant. Courtesy: Energy Northwest
POWER
|
November 2007 70
NUCLEAR UPGRADES
grade project was successfully completed
on an extremely tight schedule, during a
planned outage.
Case study #2: Turbine and
reactor pressure control upgrades
at Exelons LaSalle County plant
Since 1986, Exelon Nuclears 1,120-MW La-
Salle County Generating Station (Figure 2)
has experienced nine reactor scrams caused
by single-point failures of its GE Mark I
EHC turbine control system. The most re-
cent scrams occurred in 1999 and 2001.
Coincidentally, in 2001, GE announced
that it would stop making spare circuit
boards for the Mark I and Mark II systems.
The phase-out dovetailed with Exelons
announcement that its internal and exter-
nal support services personnel for Mark I
Turbine Control System would retire within
five years.
Upgrading to full-digital, triple-redundant
controls at the La Salle County plant would
help prevent future reactor scrams and solve
other peripheral problems at the station as
well. Exelon Nuclears strategy was to part-
ner with GE Energy (www.gepower.com)
to engineer a control solution once and ap-
ply it across Exelons 12-reactor fleet of GE
BWRs (see related story on p. 60).
Retrofit considerations. Triple redun-
dancy, on-line maintainability, nuclear expe-
rience, the availability of support services, the
possibility of simulator integration, and low
installation cost were the primary reasons be-
hind Exelons selection of GEs TMR Mark
VI digital control system. Among the systems
redundancies are triplicated field sensors and
field wiring and duplicated processors, power
supplies, and communication interfaces with
plant systems. The Mark VI system facilitates
on-line maintenance and diagnostic trouble-
shooting. The maintainability extends to the
front standard, where a mechanical trip finger
was replaced with a redundant, two-out-of-
three trip module assembly.
During replacement of the control system
at LaSalle, existing field instrumentation
cables also were replaced because they had
been degraded by heat in the low-pressure
heater bays. These cables connect to the main
turbines control, stop, and bypass valves.
Additional operational flexibility and
functionality were developed to address
reactor cool-down, automated turbine pre-
warming, improved valve testing with fewer
plant transients at higher loads, and reduced
system gain from vessel pressure control.
Clear responsibilities. One key to suc-
cessful implementation of the project was
a clearly defined commercial and technical
scope agreement between Exelon and GE,
which then partnered with Sargent & Lun-
dy to acquire project design services. The
commercial requirements document stated
milestones, payment schedules, and specific
remedies over both near and long terms. The
technical scope agreement established the di-
vision of responsibilities and accountability
of the parties.
Pre-outage prep. Pre-outage work in-
cluded modification of the plants simulator,
factory acceptance testing, task planning and
scheduling, training of plant personnel, cre-
ating an equipment inventory, and installing
supports, conduits, and cables.
Simulator. The simulator was updated to
make it able to replicate the Mark VI con-
trol system and its human-machine inter-
face (HMI), the control room environment,
and system responses. Mark VI simula-
tion software also was provided for train-
ing computers, enabling each to serve as a
complete simulator with Mark VI and HMI
functionality.
Factory acceptance testing (FAT). This
was a 10-week program that included seven
weeks of preparation and system checkout
by the GE Energy team prior to the three-
week formal witness test period by Exelon.
During this exhaustive testing, the controls
were verified and lined out to final site speci-
fications. The tests used a dynamic model
that simulates most of the field I/O connec-
tions to allow testing of their functionality
and maintainability.
Site acceptance testing. The Mark VI pan-
els arrived on-site about nine months before
the outage to allow for a two-month site ac-
ceptance test. Upon arrival, they were wired
to the actual field devices (pressure trans-
mitters, servos, and LVDTs) and repowered
to perform loop calibrations and additional
testing. Tests of the panel and the simulator
included validation of the sites operator pro-
cedures, initial lineup procedures, and future
maintenance procedures.
GE performed module testing, indepen-
dent verification and validation, system
integration testing (pre-FAT), and factory
customer witness testing. Exelon managed
2. Triple play. Exelon upgraded the reactor pressure controls at LaSalle County Generating Station to a triple-modular redundant design to
prevent future reactor scrams. Courtesy: Exelon Nuclear
November 2007
|
POWER 71
NUCLEAR UPGRADES
site acceptance, construction, modification,
and power ascension testing. All testing in-
cluded a comparison of functionality testing
results to predefined acceptance criteria. Ev-
ery control loop was tested.
Training. Courses on the new system
were provided to the plants training staff
two months prior to the systems installation.
Twenty maintenance I&C personnel were
trained on-site in two classes of 10 students
each. These individuals participated in the
systems start-up.
Outage work. This phase of the project
comprised installation and testing of me-
chanical devices and control room modifica-
tions, demolition and removal of the Mark
I panels, and installation and testing of the
Mark VI panels, their interface to the plants
DCS, and cable pulls and wire terminations.
The mechanical installation work targeted
the following areas: front standard, mid-
standard, stop, control, combined intercept,
and bypass valve actuator modifications. The
turbines permanent-magnet generator, over-
speed governor, and trip solenoids also were
replaced. A new, duplex, two-out-of-three
trip manifold assembly was installed, as
were seven new speed pickups and one spare
probe. Triplicated LVDTs and triple-coil ser-
vos were installed on the control valves.
Control room modifications comprised
the aforementioned demolition of the ex-
isting Mark I panels and installation of the
new HMI computers, trip push buttons, and
other hardwired controls or recorder outputs.
Replacing the control panels entailed remov-
ing all of the existing wiring, identifying the
wires to be reused, installing the new Mark
VI panels, and re-terminating the wires.
The other ends of the wires were terminated
concurrently at the new field devices, a step
deemed necessary to meet the aggressive
outage schedule.
Leveraging the experience. Lessons
learned during this digital upgrade project
were formally captured and discussed later
among the stakeholders to further improve
future project execution. For example:
Integration between the GE simulator and
the plant models required collaboration
among GE, Exelon Nuclear, and Exelons
plant model vendor. The vendor had to
update the model to make it compatible
with the new TMR simulation. On later
projects at Exelons other BWRs, GE will
provide simulation software and update
the simulator prior to factory acceptance
testing of the control system to optimize
project implementation.
Early inspection of supplied parts elimi-
nated delays during installation.
Integrating wiring checks by plant per-
sonnel was critical to management of the
overall project schedule. Some of these
checks proved challenging due to con-
fined work areas.
Thanks to the detailed upfront design
engineering, the outage preplanning, and
the training of I&C personnel, the GE-Ex-
elon team made the conversion from Mark
I to Mark VI controls in a record 15 days,
from breaker open to turning-gear ready.
During the 15 days that following receipt of
clearance to start work, the Mark VI TMR
panels, HMIs, networks, TMR field instru-
ments, and cable conduits were installed; the
front standard and mid-standard modifica-
tions were made; and all checkout and lineup
procedures were performed.
Case study #3: Feedwater control
systems upgrade
Another nuclear utility located in the south-
east installed a DCS in phases, two of which
coincided with upgrades of each units feed-
water control system. The steam generators
of both units had been suffering water level
instabilities often enough to warrant upgrad-
ing the controls.
An assessment of the controls to identify
upgrade possibilities and alternatives recom-
mended replacing the actuators and position-
ers of the main feedwater control valves on
Unit 1, both units feedwater control valves,
and the 15% feedwater bypass control valves.
The upgrade project installed an Invensys
DCS upgrade that replaced two computer
systems: one for digital data processing and
the other for reporting significant operating
experience.
The project also added a Westinghouse
advanced feedwater control algorithm, and
the additional I/O required automating op-
eration of the feedwater valves at low loads.
This modification included replacements of
the steam dump to atmosphere (SDTA) con-
trols, the actuators and positioners on the
SDTA valves of Unit 1, the steam bypass
control system controls (SBCS), and the
positioners on the SBCS valves of Unit 2.
The functions of the reactor cooling pump
monitoring and display system in the con-
trol room also were replaced by the addition
of DCS functionality.
Assembling the upgrade team. As was
the case with the turbine and reactor pres-
sure control upgrades at Exelons La Salle
County plant, a key to successful implemen-
tation of this project was a clearly defined
commercial and technical scope agreement.
In this case it involved the utility, Foxboro
(www.foxboro.com), Westinghouse (www
.westinghousenuclear.com), Emerson (www
.emersonprocess.com), and Sargent & Lundy.
The responsibilities spelled out in the up-
grade projects Plant Life Cycle Management
document called for preparation of procure-
ment specs for the new equipment. The plants
Major Projects Engineering group was tasked
to perform equipment acceptance reviews and
provide project administration and supervi-
sory support. Foxboro supplied the DCS, Em-
erson supplied the positioners, Westinghouse
developed the algorithms, and Sargent & Lun-
dy did the system integration and created the
field termination wiring diagrams.
On this project, new systems and upgrades
were tested as part of a multiphase program
with detailed procedures. The program spec-
ified the need for factory acceptance, site
acceptance tests, and post-installation tests.
System mockups were built and used for op-
erator input and training.
The new systems and upgrades were in-
stalled by an integrated team of craft per-
sonnel, plant engineers, S&L engineers, and
vendor representatives. The team handled
both pre-outage and outage work. The use of
an integrated team facilitated early identifi-
cation and resolution of issues, minimizing
their negative effects on project schedules
and the outage during which the project was
implemented.
Happy ending. Again, detailed up-
front design engineering, pre-outage and
outage planning, a comprehensive testing
regimen, and the integrated nature of the
installation team proved essential to the
projects success.
The addition of DCS controls to the 15%
feedwater bypass control valves on both units
has allowed seamless operation of the entire
feedwater system (from its bypass valves to
its feedwater regulating valves) with mini-
mal or no need for operator intervention. The
addition and upgrading of systems have al-
lowed both units to ride through feedwa-
ter transients without tripping. Operators of
both units report that the new system is such
a great improvement over the old one that
they couldnt ask for better performance.
The authors would like to thank
Darren Herschberger (darren.herschberger
@ge.com), product line leader in GE
Energys Control Solutions group, for much
of the information in case study #2. We also
thank Dean Crumpacker (william.crumpacker
@sargentlundy.com), a manager in Sargent
& Lundys Nuclear Power Technology group,
for providing the details at the heart of case
study #3.
Roy Raychaudhuri (roy.raychaudhuri
@sargentlundy.com) is a senior manager
in Sargent & Lundys Nuclear Power
Technologies group. Doug Beach
(dhbeach@energy-northwest.com) is a
project manager at Energy Northwest.
|
November 2007 72
INSTRUMENTATION
Accurately measure the dynamic
response of pressure instruments
How do you know if a pressure transmitter is giving poor results? Unless the
transmitter actually fails, most operators wont notice a very slow loss in
accuracy or response time. Fortunately, the noise analysis technique can
identify such changes before they cause a problem. The technique has
been used to effectively measure the dynamic response of nuclear power
plant pressure sensors and their associated sensing lines. It also can be
applied to any plant that relies on accurate instrumentation for control
and monitoring plant performance.
By H.M. Hashemian, Analysis and Measurement Services Corp.
N
uclear power plants measure the
dynamic response of their safety-
related pressure, level, and flow
transmitters for one or more of at least four
reasons:
To comply with a plants technical speci-
fications and/or regulatory requirements
regarding response-time testing.
In troubleshooting, to identify sensor or
sensing-line problems, including block-
ages, voids, and leaks.
To manage component aging, estimate
residual life, and assess the reliability of
pressure-sensing systems.
To establish objective sensor replacement
schedules.
Why nuclear plants measure the dynamic
response of pressure sensors and their asso-
ciated sensing lines is better understood than
how to do the measuring. To address that
problem, this article explains a noise analy-
sis technique that will accurately measure
these dynamic responses.
The noise analysis technique provides
a passive method for dynamically testing
pressure-sensing systems. It generates the
response time for both a pressure transmitter
and its sensing lines simultaneously. The test
can be performed remotely while a plant is
operating, does not require that transmitters
be removed from service, does not interfere
with plant operation, and can be performed
on several transmitters simultaneously.
Those benefits result in an attractive bottom
line, because tests that can be run without in-
terrupting the demand for high nuclear plant
capacity factors are a big plus in todays
competitive markets.
Basic definitions
The noise analysis technique is based on
analyzing the natural fluctuations that ex-
ist at the output of pressure transmitters
while a plant is operating. These fluctua-
tions (noise) are caused by the turbulence
induced by the flow of water in the system,
by vibration, and by other naturally occur-
ring phenomena.
The noise analysis test has three steps:
data acquisition, data qualification, and data
analysis.
Data acquisition. A pressure transmit-
ters normal output is a DC signal on which
the process noise (AC signal) is superim-
posed. That noise is extracted from the trans-
mitter output by removing the signals DC
component and amplifying the AC compo-
nent. This is easily accomplished by using
commercial signal-conditioning equipment,
including amplifiers, filters, and other com-
ponents. The AC signal is then digitized us-
ing a high sampling rate (1 or 2 kHz) and
stored for subsequent analysis. The analysis
may be performed in real time as data are
collected or off-line by retrieving the data
from storage.
Figure 1 illustrates a 50-second record of
noise data from a pressure transmitter in a
nuclear power plant. For each transmitter (or
each group of transmitters), about an hour of
such noise data is typically recorded for use
in the analysis.
Data qualification. The raw data must
first be thoroughly scanned and screened
before any analysis can begin. This is nor-
mally accomplished using data qualifica-
tion algorithms embedded in software,
which check for the stationary and linear
attributes of the raw data and look for other
abnormalities.
-1.0
-0.6
-0.2
0.0
0.2
0.6
1.0
0 10 20 30 40 50
Time (sec)
N
o
r
m
a
l
i
z
e
d

s
i
g
n
a
l

v
a
l
u
e
1. Collect the data. A short noise data record from a pressure transmitter in an operating
nuclear power plant. Source: AMS and Springer-Verlag
072 Instrument.indd 72 11/5/07 4:53:26 PM
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|
November 2007 74
For example, the raw datas amplitude
probability density (APD) is plotted and
examined for skewness. The top APD in
Figure 2 is perfectly symmetrical about the
mean value of the data and fits the Gauss-
ian distribution (the bell-shaped curve) that
is superimposed on the APD. A Gaussian
distribution is also referred to as a normal
distribution. A skewed APD (see the lower
plot of Figure 2) could be caused by any
number of anomalies in the data, including
the nonlinearity of the sensor from which
the data are retrieved.
In addition to APD for noise data quali-
fication, the mean, variance, skewness, and
flatness of each block of raw data are calcu-
lated and scanned to verify that no saturated
blocks, extraneous effects, missing data, or
other undesirable characteristics are present.
Any data block that has an anomaly is re-
moved from the record before it is analyzed.
Data analysis. Noise data are analyzed
in the frequency domain and/or time domain.
For frequency domain analysis, the noise
signals power spectral density (PSD) is first
obtained through an FFT algorithm or its
equivalent. Next, a mathematical model of
the pressure-sensing system is fit to the PSD,
from which the systems response time is cal-
culated. The PSDs of nuclear plant pressure
transmitters have various shapes, depending
on the plant, the transmitter installation and
service, the process conditions, and other ef-
fects (Figure 3).
For time domain analysis, the noise data
are processed using a univariate autoregres-
sive (AR) modeling program. This provides
the impulse response (the response to a nar-
row pressure pulse) and the step response,
from which the systems response time is
calculated. Typically, the noise data are ana-
lyzed in both the frequency domain and time
domain, and the results are averaged to ob-
tain the systems response time.
A few assumptions
The validity of the noise analysis technique
for testing the response time of nuclear pow-
er plants pressure-sensing systems depends
on three assumptions:
0
0.5
1.0
1.5
2.0
2.5
-0.08 -0.04 0 0.04 0.08

0
0.5
1.0
1.5
2.0
-0.08 -0.04 0 0.04 0.08
A
P
D
A
P
D
Data value (bar)
Data value (bar)
Gaussian
(normal)
distribution
Gaussian
(normal)
distribution
Normal
Data distribution
Data distribution
Skewed
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2. Manipulate the data. Normal and skewed APDs of noise signals from nuclear plant
pressure transmitters. Source: AMS and Springer-Verlag
INSTRUMENTATION
November 2007
|
POWER 75
INSTRUMENTATION
The process noise that drives the transmit-
ter is white, meaning that it has a flat
spectrum or essentially infinite bandwidth.
This, of course, is ideal but not readily
achievable. However, as long as the pro-
cess noises spectrum has a larger band-
width than the tested systems frequency
response, the noise analysis results will
be reasonably accurate. If, however, the
process noise has a smaller bandwidth
than the system under test, then the noise
analysis results will be dominated by the
process bandwidth. The response-time
results obtained from the noise analysis
technique will therefore be larger than the
actual response time of the pressure-sens-
ing system. This is acceptable in nuclear
power plants because it produces conser-
vative results.
The process noise should not have large
resonances that can shift the noise spec-
trums rolloff frequency to higher frequen-
cies. If this assumption is not satisfied,
corrective measures must be implemented
when the data are analyzed or the results
are interpreted; otherwise, the response-
time values obtained from the noise anal-
ysis technique may not be conservative.
The transmitter to be tested must be pre-
dominantly linear. The noise analysis re-
sults wont be valid if the response time of
interest is one that can be measured with
a small-amplitude test signal at a pressure
setpoint that is close to the pressure at
which the transmitter normally operates
in the plant. Plotting the APD of the raw
data as described and checking for skew-
ness (Figure 4) will help verify a pressure
sensing systems linearity.
Experience has shown that these three as-
sumptions are normally met for nuclear plant
pressure transmitters. For transmitters whose
process parameters fluctuate very little or not
at allsuch as containment pressure trans-
mitters and water storage tanklevel trans-
mittersa method known as a pink noise
test can remotely measure response time.

0.1 1
10
Steam generator level
Reactor coolant flow
Pressurizer pressure
Frequency (Hz)
0.01
1E+01
1E-01
1E-03
1E-05
1E-07
1E+01
1E-01
1E-03
1E-05
1E+02
1E+01
1E+00
1E-01
1E-02
1E-03
P
o
w
e
r

s
p
e
c
t
r
a
l

d
e
n
s
i
t
y
P
o
w
e
r

s
p
e
c
t
r
a
l

d
e
n
s
i
t
y
P
o
w
e
r

s
p
e
c
t
r
a
l

d
e
n
s
i
t
y
A
m
p
l
i
t
u
d
e

p
r
o
b
a
b
i
l
i
t
y

d
e
n
s
i
t
y
PT-542
Ramp = 0.13 sec
Noise = 0.16 sec
-15 0 15
A
m
p
l
i
t
u
d
e

p
r
o
b
a
b
i
l
i
t
y

d
e
n
s
i
t
y
PT-546
Ramp = 0.12 sec
Noise = 0.18 sec
-3 0 3
A
m
p
l
i
t
u
d
e

p
r
o
b
a
b
i
l
i
t
y

d
e
n
s
i
t
y
PT-505
Ramp = 0.16 sec
Noise = 0.78 sec
-0.2 0.0 0.2
Data value
3. Examine the data. Examples of power spectral densities of nuclear plant pressure
transmitters. Source: AMS and Springer-Verlag
4. Loss of symmetry. In these am-
plitude probability densities of transmitters
from in-plant testing at a pressurized water
reactor, note the nonlinear response of PT-
505, indicating that there is a problem with
the transmitter or sensing line. Source: AMS
and Springer-Verlag
POWER
|
November 2007 76
INSTRUMENTATION
Confirmed accuracy
The accuracy of the noise analysis tech-
nique for testing the response time of pres-
sure-sensing systems has been established
experimentally using pressure transmitters
like those used in nuclear power plants.
For each transmitter, the response time was
measured first using the ramp method and
then using the noise analysis technique. In
doing so, the reliability of the ramp test re-
sults was first established in the laboratory
by ramp-testing pressure transmitters using
several ramp rates and by performing re-
peatability tests. Except for a few outliers,
the results proved to be repeatable to better
than 0.05 second, with little or no depen-
dence on the ramp rate.
Next, laboratory measurements were
made to examine the repeatability of the
noise analysis results. As with the ramp
tests described previously, the repeatability
of the noise analysis results was better than
0.05 second, a few outliers notwithstanding.
This is reasonable considering the potential
effects that can influence the noise analysis
results. From these tests we can draw the fol-
lowing conclusions:
79% of response-time results from the
noise analysis technique fall within 0.05
second of the ramp test results performed
on the same transmitters under the same
conditions.
16% of noise analysis response-time re-
sults fall between 0.05 and 0.10 second
() of the ramp test results.
5% of noise analysis response-time results
fall within 0.10 second of the ramp test
results.
Based on all the foregoing data, the nu-
clear power industry has concluded that the
noise analysis technique indicates the re-
sponse time of pressure-sensing systems to
an accuracy of better than 0.10 second.
Testing techniques
Response-time testing using the noise
analysis technique has been performed on
nuclear power plant pressure transmitters
since the early 1980s. Lets take a look at
some examples gleaned from the resulting
database of response-time values and re-
cords of raw data, PSD plots, and observa-
tions. Figure 5 shows noise-test PSDs for

2-loop PWR 3-loop PWR 4-loop PWR BWR
Pressure Pressure Pressure Pressure
Level Level Level Level
Frequency (Hz) Frequency (Hz) Frequency (Hz) Frequency (Hz)
Flow Flow Flow Flow
1E -01
1E -08
1E +01
1E -08
1E +01
1E -07
1E +01
1E -06
1E +01
1E -07
1E -01
1E -09
1E+ 00
1E -08
1E+ 00
1E -08
1E+ 02
1E -05
1E+ 02
1E -05
1E-+00
1E -05
1E +01
1E -04
0.1 1 10 100 0.1 1 10 100
0.1 1 10 100 0.1 1 10 100 0.01 0.1 1 10
0.01 0.1 1 10 0.01 0.1 1 10 0.01 0.1 1 10 0.01 0.1 1 10
0.1 1 10 100
0.1 1 10 100 0.1 10 100
5. Different strokes. Examples of typical power spectral densities of pressure, level, and flow transmitters in PWRs and BWRs. Source:
AMS and Springer-Verlag

Reference
Three years
later
1E+01
1E-01
1E-03
1E-05
1E-07
0.01 0.1 1 10
Frequency (Hz)
P
S
D
6. Time trends tell a story. The PSDs of a nuclear plant pressure transmitter were
measured three years apart. Source: AMS and Springer-Verlag
November 2007
|
POWER 77
INSTRUMENTATION
two-loop, three-loop, and four-loop pres-
surized water reactors (PWRs) and a boiling
water reactor (BWR) plant. Three PSDs are
shown in each case for a pressure, a level,
and a flow transmitter in each plant type.
In several plants, noise testing has been
performed on more than one occasion, mak-
ing it possible to examine the repeatability
of the results. Figure 6 shows two PSDs for a
steam generator level transmitter in a three-
loop PWR plant. The tests were performed
approximately three years apart. The results
are essentially identical, which indicates
that the noise test for this transmitter is very
repeatable and that the transmitter has expe-
rienced no response time changes over this
three-year period.
On another occasion, two redundant
transmitters of the same steam generator
level signal were tested at the same time
in a four-loop PWR. The PSD results are
shown in Figure 7. It is apparent that one of
these transmitters is significantly faster than
the other (by about an order of magnitude).
This is unusual because the response times
of redundant transmitters are normally ex-
pected to be comparable. In this particular
case, the two transmitters are from two dif-
ferent manufacturers, and they were prob-
ably installed without considering that the
two transmitters might have vastly differ-
ence response times. This type of difference
in response time is also seen in redundant
transmitters when there is blockage in the
sensing line. However, in the case shown in
Figure 7, the difference is not the result of
sensing line blockage.
Detect oil loss
In the late 1980s, some pressure transmit-
ters in nuclear power plants from a particular
manufacturer were found to be leaking sili-
con oil from their sensing cells. Silicon oil is
used to transfer pressure signals from the iso-
lation diaphragm to the sensing diaphragm at
the center of the sensing cell. Thus, if the oil
leaks, both the transmitters steady-state (cal-
ibration) and dynamic response are affected.
Figure 8 shows the responses of two flow
transmitters at a nuclear power station after
a reactor coolant pump trip. Note that one
transmitter (FT-444) responds quickly to
flow reduction as expected, but the other
transmitter (FT-445) is extremely sluggish.
Later analysis confirmed that the FT-445 suf-
fered from the oil loss problem.
Figure 9 shows raw noise data for a nor-
mal and a failed (from oil loss) transmit-
terboth used in the same service in an
operating nuclear power plant. As expected,
the amplitude of the noise signal from the
failed transmitter is much smaller than that
from the normal transmitter.

P
S
D
Frequency (Hz)
0.01 0.1 1 10
1E -0.1
1E -0.3
1E -0.5
1E -0.7
Manufacturer A
Manufacturer B
7. Problem transmitter. These PSDs are from two redundant steam generator level
transmitters in a four-loop PWR plant. Source: AMS and Springer-Verlag

120
110
100
90
80
Time
10:04 a.m. 10:33 a.m. 11:02 a.m. 11:31 a.m. 12:00 noon
Reactor coolant pump trip
FT-445
FT-444
(expected
response)
R
e
a
c
t
o
r

c
o
o
l
a
n
t

p
u
m
p

f
l
o
w

(
%
)
8. Obvious problem. The dynamic response of two transmitters during the shutdown of
a nuclear power station illustrates unexpected response. Source: AMS and Springer-Verlag

0.10
0.05
0
-0.05
-0.10
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5
Normal
Failed
Time (seconds)
P
r
e
s
s
u
r
e

a
m
p
l
i
t
u
d
e

(
b
a
r
)
9. Anatomy of a failure. These obviously different lines depict the noise output from
testing of a normal and a failed transmitter in an operating nuclear power plant. Source: AMS
and Springer-Verlag
POWER
|
November 2007 78
INSTRUMENTATION
After learning of the oil loss problem, the
author and his colleagues at Analysis and
Measurement Services Corp. (AMS) devel-
oped noise diagnostics for detecting the oil
loss. This involved calculating the second to
the fifth moments of the noise data as well
as the ratio of these moments based on noise
records above and below the signals mean
value. The first moment of noise data is its
mean value, its second moment is the vari-
ance, and the third moment is skewness.
Table 1 is an example of noise diagnos-
tic descriptors for four steam generator level
transmitters in a PWR plant. Note that the
values of the descriptors for LT528 are much
different than for the other transmitters. This
transmitter was later removed from the plant
and sent to the manufacturer, where it was
determined that the problem was caused by
oil loss in the transmitters sensing module.
This and similar cases demonstrated that the
noise analysis technique can provide a useful
means for diagnosing oil loss.
Fortunately, the root cause of the oil loss
problem in this manufacturers transmitters
was identified and resolved by the manu-
facturer very quickly. Therefore, the nuclear
industry did not suffer any adverse conse-
quences. Also, because the problem was suc-
cessfully resolved early, use of the noise
diagnostics for detecting oil loss did not be-
come routine in nuclear power plants.
Response time degrades
The response time of nuclear plant pressure
transmitters does degrade, but this is not as
prevalent a problem for pressure transmitters
as it is for resistance temperature detectors
(RTDs). Conversely, calibration drift is more
of a problem in pressure transmitters than it
is in RTDs. Figure 10 summarizes the results
of a research project to quantify the effects of
normal aging on the calibration and response
time of a sample of nuclear-grade pressure
transmitters. It is clear that aging affects the
calibration of pressure transmitters more
than their response time.
Table 2 shows response time results
from noise analysis testing performed on 16
transmitters over five years. The measure-
ments were made using the noise analysis
technique. Only one transmitter suffered
response time degradation of about 30% af-
ter 36 months of service, and this was later
determined not to be due to the transmitter
but to a sensing line blockage. This finding
is consistent with the nuclear industrys ex-
perience that response-time degradation in
pressure transmitters is more often due to
sensing line blockages than to degradation in
the transmitter itself.
This article is based on material summa-
rized and excerpted from Chapter 9, pages
195225 of the authors book, Maintenance
Process Instrumentation in Nuclear Power
Plants (Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg,
2006). Used with the kind permission of
Springer Science and Business Media.
H.M. Hashemian (hash@ams-corp
.com) is president and CEO of Analysis
and Measurement Services Corp.
Table 2. Trend response times. Here are typical results of trending of response time
for a group of nuclear plant pressure transmitters. Source: AMS and Springer-Verlag

Failed (7%)
Moderately
affected (35%)
Unaffected (58%)
Calibration changes
Failed (4%)
Moderately
affected (12%)
Unaffected (84%)
Response time changes
10. Transmitter failure profile. These results are from experimental research on the
performance of aging nuclear plant pressure transmitters. Source: AMS and Springer-Verlag
Tag number
LT-0011A
LT-0012A
LT-0013A
LT-0014A
LT-0021A
LT-0022A
LT-0023A
LT-0024A
LT-0031A
LT-0032A
LT-0033A
LT-0034A
LT-0041A
LT-0042A
LT-0043A
LT-0044A
Initial testing
0.36
0.38
0.45
0.43
0.41
0.39
0.44
0.46
0.39
0.43
0.45
0.45
0.38
0.44
0.43
0.45
18 months later
0.41
0.42
0.43
0.41
0.45
0.42
0.49
0.48
0.42
0.46
0.48
0.47
0.44
0.42
0.44
0.44
36 months later
0.43
0.43
0.45
0.44
0.43
0.42
0.47
0.44
0.41
0.44
0.44
0.42
0.4
0.43
0.42
0.41
48 months later
0.44
0.43
0.47
0.47
0.43
0.43
0.46
0.66
0.41
0.48
0.46
0.45
0.41
0.45
0.41
0.42
60 months later
0.44
0.43
0.41
0.43
0.42
0.42
0.43
0.41
a
0.40
0.42
0.44
0.41
0.44
0.41
0.40
0.40
Note: a. Sensors response time degraded between 36 and 48 months of service. The problem was corrected
during an outage at 48 months.
Response time (sec)
Diagnostic descriptor
Skewness 0
5th moment 0
Variance ratio 1
Skewness ratio 1
5th moment ratio 1
LT518
0.02
0.07
1.03
1
1
LT528
0.23
2.12
1.25
1.06
1.21
LT538
0.08
0.7
1.09
1.01
1.04
LT548
0.05
0.36
1.06
1.02
1.06
Measured values of diagnostic descriptors
Normal value
Table 1. Diagnose oil loss from instruments. These oil-loss diagnostic results
were obtained from tests in a nuclear power plant. Note the values of descriptors for LT 528.
This transmitter was later removed and sent to the manufacturer, where it was determined
that the problem was caused by oil loss in the transmitters sensing module. Source: AMS and
Springer-Verlag
|
November 2007 80
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Milestones on the road
to commercial operation
The electric power industry is capital-intensive, and it takes several years to
build and commission a baseload plant for commercial operation. Own-
ers seek contractors who are willinggiven proper incentivesto build a
plant for a lump-sum price with a guaranteed schedule and performance.
Matching an owners wants with contractors needs is an exercise in al-
locating risk. Avoid the contract traps that can stall a project and cost mil-
lions to resolve.
By Denis J. King, Asilea Resources LLC, and Arif Hyder Ali, Crowell & Moring LLP
A
n engineering, procurement, and con-
struction (EPC) contract for a power
project defines how its risks will be
allocated and the scope of work to be per-
formed by both parties. This article begins
by detailing several kinds of risk that are
typically the subject of lengthy negotiations
and concludes with two case studies of dis-
pute resolution, which is needed when good
contracts are poorly executed. We hope that
these descriptions of construction contract
risk prove helpful during your next negotia-
tion for a new plant or major plant upgrade.
Carrots and sticks
EPC contracts are two-way streets. Contrac-
tors normally seek to have their agreements
provide bonuses for beating a projects sched-
ule deadlines and/or performance standards.
Such provisions balance other provisions for
payment of predetermined liquidated dam-
ages that are typically required by owners as
insurance against nonperformance. Contrac-
tors are liable if the plant is commissioned
late or cannot operate at its guaranteed ca-
pacity and heat rate at full load.
Owners are willing to reward contractors
with a share of the bonus revenues gener-
ated by a project that comes on-line earlier
than expected. For their part, contractors are
willing to accept liability for liquidated dam-
ages because the plants construction sched-
ule and performance are under their control
(barring legal delays or an act of God).
The magnitude of the liquidated damages
is usually sufficient incentive for the EPC
contractor to build a plant that meets the
guarantees.
Naturally, EPC contractors cover their
own risk by insisting on liquidated damages
I
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080 ProjMgmt.indd 80 11/5/07 4:54:01 PM
November 2007
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POWER 81
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
clauses in contracts for major plant equip-
ment. Equipment vendors guarantee the
performance of their individual units, but it
is ultimately up to the EPC contractor to tie
those units together into a power generation
system with a minimum capacity and maxi-
mum heat rate.
Performance guarantees usually have a
tolerance band, to allow an owner to provi-
sionally accept a completed plant and begin
selling its output. Provisional acceptance is
followed by a grace period, during which the
EPC contractor adjusts equipment and sys-
tems as necessary to enable the plant to meet
contractual performance guarantees. If the
plant still cannot meet those guarantees by
the time of final acceptance, the contractor
normally would be required to buy down
the shortfall in plant performance at the
specified liquidated damages rate.
Typically, an EPC contract has zero tol-
erance for a plant that cannot operate with-
out exceeding permitted levels of air, water,
and noise pollution. If it cannot meet all
emissions guarantees, it cannot be accept-
ed, even provisionally. Supply contracts for
major equipment have their own emissions
guarantees.
Similarly, there is zero tolerance for a
project being late. The project schedule is a
heavily negotiated item of the EPC contract.
Because schedule guarantees are only par-
tially backed by equipment vendors delivery
dates, most of this type of risk is borne by the
EPC contractor.
By the milestones
The common thread in nearly all large power
projects is a series of milestones that the EPC
contractor must reach on the road to commer-
cial operationand final contractual pay-
ments. Each milestone has checks, balances,
and risks that together ensure compliance at
a certain time with the terms of the EPC con-
tract. These milestones are typically:
Mechanical completion
Performance testing
Provisional acceptance
Commercial operation
Mechanical completion. Mechanical
completion signifies the successful comple-
tion of start-up and commissioning of all
plant systems. After each system is turned
over from the EPC contractor to the projects
start-up organization, it is checked out, cali-
brated, and commissioned. Often, the EPC
contractor is also tasked with providing
hands-on training to operators of the new
plant. Having the operators participate in
start-up gives them invaluable plant-specific
experience, as well as an opportunity to iden-
tify punch list items to be included in the
package of test and commissioning data that
accompanies each system to its next stop:
performance testing.
A punch list is usually developed for each
system prior to its turnover. Items on the list
represent jobs that need to be done by the
EPC contractor but ones that are not so ur-
gent that leaving them undone would affect
personnel safety or the plants operability or
permit compliance. Examples include build-
ing access platforms for maintenance, touch-
up painting, landscaping, and site cleanup.
Each item on a punch list is carefully
considered; indeed, a single item is often
the subject of long negotiations among the
plants owner, EPC contractor, and operator
to determine whether it is necessary and in-
cluded in the contractors scope of work. The
contractor can complete tasks on the punch
list after performance tests are conducted
and the plant is accepted by the owner.
During start-up and commissioning, the
suppliers of boilers, turbines, pumps, and
motors fine-tune their gear in an integrated
environment, usually with units connected to
the grid. This step is critical because it sets
the baseline values of capacity, heat rate, and
emissions metrics to be verified by perfor-
mance testing.
While the plant is being tuned, fuel is con-
sumed and electrical energy is delivered to
the grid through the local, interconnecting
utility. For bearing the risk of paying for the
fuel, the owner is rewarded by the revenues
generated. But because the plant may start up
and shut down many times during the tun-
ing phase, the grid operator must consider
its output unreliable, and the plant itself not
dispatchable. Accordingly, the owner is paid
for kilowatt-hours at a lower, avoided-cost
rate. Because these revenues may not fully
offset the cost of fuel, it is not uncommon
for a contract to stipulate that the EPC foot
some of the fuel bill if the duration of tuning
becomes excessive.
Mechanical completion is a critical mile-
stone in the lifecycle of a power project, and
not just because it precedes performance
testing. It is also an opportunity for the own-
er to make sure that other contractual obli-
gationstraining operators, and delivering
O&M manuals, for examplehave been met
by the EPC contractor. Mechanical comple-
tion often is certified by a piece of paper
attesting that both the owner and the EPC
agree that the plant is ready for performance
testing.
The conditions required for mechanical
completion status usually include the fol-
lowing:
The EPC contractor has finished all tasks
(including operator training) in its scope
of work, except for the items on punch
lists.
The work is mechanically and electrically
sound, plant start-up is complete, and all
systems can be operated as specified.
The plant can be operated in compliance
with all relevant laws and permits and
without damage to persons or property.
The plant has synchronized to the grid.
The contractor has provided draft copies
of station manuals and O&M manuals.
Performance testing. Performance test-
ing gives the EPC contractor an opportunity to
prove that the plant meets performance guar-
antees for capacity, heat rate, and emissions.
Performance testing entails operating the
power plant at full load using normal pro-
cedures while measuring its fuel consump-
tion and energy and pollutant outputs over a
short period of time4 hours, for example.
Ambient conditions and fuel content are also
recorded, and that data is then used to ad-
just the three measurements for comparison
with guaranteed performance levels. In many
cases, the plant is also run for an extended
periodsay, 100 hoursto make sure that
all systems and components work properly,
both individually and in concert, and to de-
080 ProjMgmt.indd 81 11/5/07 4:54:02 PM
POWER
|
November 2007 82
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
tect lemons at the steep, early end of the
reliability bathtub curve.
Successful completion of performance
testing gives the EPC contractor an oppor-
tunity to stop the accumulation of liqui-
dated damages if the plant is finished after
the guaranteed completion date, or to claim
a bonus payment if the plant is completed
before it.
As during fine-tuning in the mechanical
completion phase, the plant owner provides
the fuel for performance testing and reaps
the rewards of generation revenues it produc-
es. Again, the receiving utility pays for kilo-
watt-hours at an avoided-cost rate, because
the output is considered unreliable. At this
stage, though, if revenues do not compensate
for the cost of fuel, the difference is typically
absorbed by the owner.
Provisional acceptance. There is usu-
ally a 95% provisional acceptance level for
capacity and a 105% provisional acceptance
level for heat rate. As mentioned, all guaran-
teed emissions levels must be met, and the
plant must be operated in compliance with
permits before the owner will grant provi-
sional acceptance of the plant to the EPC
contractor.
If capacity and heat rate are not at the
100% guaranteed performance level when
first tested, but within the range for provi-
sional acceptance, the EPC contractor usu-
ally has until the date of final acceptance to
achieve the 100% levels through tuning, ad-
justments, or modifications. After that date,
the contractor will have to buy down any dif-
ference at the liquidated damages rate stated
in the contract, as mentioned earlier.
Punch list items also have to be completed
by the final acceptance date, which may be
as long as one year after the provisional ac-
ceptance date.
Commercial operation. Provisional
acceptance occurs when the results of per-
formance testing are verified. Verification
may take some time because the technical
data must be analyzed by the owners engi-
neer and an independent engineer. The EPC
contractor retains care, custody, control, and
the risk of loss while the test results are be-
ing verified. When test results verify that the
guaranteed performance levels have been
met, provisional acceptance is granted retro-
active to the date of successful completion of
performance testing.
Upon provisional acceptance, care, cus-
tody, and control transfer to the owner. The
commercial operation phase begins when
the plant is dispatched or given a generation
schedule by the grid operator, following no-
tification of the interconnecting utility.
In the case of a plant that delivers energy
under a power-purchase agreement (PPA),
the off-taker typically will verify results
of the performance testing to confirm that
the actual capacity meets the requirements
of the PPA. In some cases, the off-taker is
only notified that the results met the re-
quirements of the PPA before commercial
operation begins.
Resolving disputes
Should there be any misunderstanding about
any of the milestones, the first step is to re-
view the dispute resolution provisions of
the EPC contract. In international EPC con-
tracts, the two most common forms of dis-
pute resolution are an expert determination
by an engineer or a dispute review board, and
arbitration.
If a dispute involves technical or any other
specialized issues, appointing an engineer
as an impartial fact-finding and -evaluating
expert can facilitate an early resolution. The
engineers independence, which most arbi-
tral tribunals value highly, can encourage
both parties to narrow the issues and reach a
settlement with no need for a costly arbitra-
tion. The engineers neutral fact-finding pro-
cedure can be binding or nonbinding.
A dispute review board is a private, vol-
untary, and confidential procedure com-
monly used in the context of an ongoing
long-term relationship. The board comprises
an informed standing group of experts who
can quickly deal with disputes as they arise.
Dispute review boards are commonly used in
the construction industry and in high-value
outsourcing contracts. Their determinations
may be binding or simply advisory.
Arbitration involves the adjudication of
rights by a tribunal of one or several arbi-
trators with the power to render a decision
that is final and binding on both parties. The
parties must specifically agree in writing to
submit their dispute to arbitration. A pos-
sible exception is when one of the parties is a
sovereign state or state-controlled enterprise,
in which case the parties consent to arbi-
trate may be based on an investment protec-
tion and promotion treaty or an investment
law. Arbitration is a preferred alternative to
dispute resolution in the national courts of
one of the parties because neither party has
the home court advantage. Furthermore,
settlement of the dispute is entrusted to arbi-
trators who may have significant experience
resolving international power project con-
tract disputes.
The two parties agreement to submit their
dispute to arbitration can take either of two
forms. One is a specific clausean arbitra-
tion clausein the original contract between
them in which they agree to resolve all fu-
ture disputes by arbitration. The other is a
separate contract between the parties after a
dispute has arisen stating their intention to
submit that dispute to arbitration The latter
is called a submission agreement, or clause
compromissoire.
The importance of drafting an effective
and enforceable arbitration clause should not
be underestimated. A properly drafted arbi-
tration clause makes the method of resolving
future disputes more predictable. A poorly
drafted clause, on the other hand, can result
in unnecessary costs and delays representing
the time spent arguing about the dispute res-
olution mechanism rather than the substance
of the dispute itself.
It is increasingly common to find contract
language that specifies arbitration for dispute
resolution accompanied by clauses requiring
both parties to pursue certain nonbinding ef-
forts to resolve their dispute before arbitra-
tion can begin. These are often referred to as
multistep dispute resolution clauses.
Typical multistep procedures require the
parties to try to settle their dispute through
negotiation. They also identify the level of
corporate management at which the nego-
tiations should take place and set time lim-
its for their completion. Should negotiation
efforts fail, the clause may even call for the
parties to enter into mediation or proceed
directly to arbitration. If the clause calls for
mediation and the parties cannot reach a
settlement within the stipulated time, or if
one party refuses to participate, the dispute
080 ProjMgmt.indd 82 11/5/07 4:54:03 PM
November 2007
|
POWER 83
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
goes to arbitration.
Tell it to the judge
Dispute resolution is as much art as science.
Following are two case studies from the in-
ternational arena that should make this clear.
Case #1: Readyor notfor com-
mercial operation. Late in 2001, Compha-
nia Paranaense de Energia Ltda. (Copel), a
Brazilian mixed-capital company, stopped
making monthly capacity payments under a
PPA it had signed with UEG Araucaria Ltda.,
a joint venture of El Paso do Brasil Ltda.,
Petrobras, and Copel itself. At the center of
the dispute was a 469-MW combined-cycle
power project at Araucaria, near Curitiba in
the southern Brazilian state of Parana, owned
by the joint venture. Copel holds the electric-
ity supply concession for the state.
In addition to arguing that the PPA itself
was invalid under Brazilian law, Copel plead-
ed that the plant had not been built in com-
pliance with the terms of its EPC contract.
Initially, Copelthe off-takermade capac-
ity payments to UEG Araucaria. Then, at the
direction of the state government, it stopped,
putting Copel at default under the PPA.
At this point, UEG Araucaria terminated
the PPA (in compliance with its terms) and
invoked its dispute resolution clause. The
clause called for the parties to negotiate first
and, if that failed, to submit the dispute to ar-
bitration in Paris before a three-person tribu-
nal under rules of the International Chamber
of Commerce.
The crux of the dispute was Copels claim
that the plant had not achieved commercial
operation. In addition to being the off-taker
of the plants output, Copel was responsible
for building the plants natural gas supply
pipeline, its water supply system, and a sub-
station and transmission lines to connect the
plant to the grid. Copel also was responsible
for O&M of the plant and for supplying its
fuel, whose specifications were spelled out
in the PPA.
Two gas turbines had been purchased on
the assumption that the fuel they would be
supplied would meet or exceed the require-
ments of the turbines manufacturer. The
natural gas to come from a new pipeline from
Bolivia was expected to meet those require-
ments. But when the gas began to flow, it was
of poor quality. It became evident that if Co-
pel supplied that gas to the Araucaria plant,
both turbines warranties would be voided.
At Copels direction, a gas conditioning
system (GCS) was installed to condition the
natural gas to meet the vendors specifica-
tions. It was ready to provide compliance
fuel to the turbines both when the plant was
ready for performance testing and at the time
of planned commercial operation in Sep-
tember 2002. However, the GCS produced
by-productsnatural gas liquids such as liq-
uefied petroleum gas (LPG) and naphtha
that have significant value. When the power
plant was ready for commercial operation,
the facility for storing the LPG had not been
completed, so the LPG had to be flared.
Performance testing of the power plant
was successful: All capacity, heat rate, and
emissions requirements were met, with the
GCS supplying acceptable fuel. At this point,
UEG Araucaria declared that the plant had
achieved commercial operation. But Copel
disagreed. When it stopped making monthly
capacity payments, it claimed that the plant
had not achieved commercial operation be-
cause the GCS had not been completed and
therefore was unsafe.
Before the parties dispute was resolved
amicably, the Paris tribunal heard significant
amounts of expert testimony from both sides
on such issues as the proper functioning of the
plant, the requirements for declaring commer-
cial operations under the PPA, the significance
of punch list items, and the size of perfor-
mance bonuses and liquidated damages.
Case #2: River gets dirtier. Who
should pay to screen it? In the late 1990s,
the cost of modifying a power plants water
intake structure, incurred by an EPC con-
tractor after the owner declared commercial
operation, became the subject of a dispute
that ended up in arbitration. After the plant
passed performance testing, the owner made
that declaration (in compliance with the
terms of its PPA), although significant work
remained to be done on the structure in order
to prevent the PPA from expiring.
This plant, in Colombia, has a net capac-
ity of 220 MW in combined-cycle mode and
uses once-through cooling of its steam tur-
bine condenser. It was built by affiliates of a
Japanese company for the owner, a joint ven-
ture of the Japanese firm and an American
company.
Although the plant was able to pass the
performance testing mandated by the PPA,
tests revealed considerable debris flowing
through the intake structure that would make
the condenser and the auxiliary cooling sys-
tem prone to fouling. The original design
of the intake structure used fixed screens
and trash rakes, which proved inadequate.
After the installation of traveling screens,
the condenser still experienced fouling, and
sand and silt continued to enter the auxiliary
cooling system. To successfully complete
the performance testing, the contractor had
to reverse the flow through the condenser to
reduce fouling of the tube sheets.
The continued fouling made it clear that
significant modifications to the intake struc-
ture were needed to keep debris from enter-
ing the plant. Among the steps that the EPC
contractor took were placing flow diverters
in the river, adding a screen-washing sys-
tem at the intake structure, and changing the
design of the auxiliary cooling system from
open-loop to closed-loop with the addition of
a small cooling tower.
Naturally, the owner claimed that the mod-
ifications were within the scope of work of
the lump-sum contract, while the contractor
considered his expense a result of changed
conditions in the river. The dispute led to
arbitration under the Rules of the American
Arbitration Association in New York. This
case also was settled amicably, but only after
significant expert testimony had been pre-
sented on the safe operation of power plant
intake structures.
Denis J. King (denis.king@asilea.com)
is a principal and founding member of
Asilea Resources LLC, a Maryland-based
consulting firm. A Registered Professional
Engineer, he also acts as an advisor to the
K&M Group of Companies. Arif Hyder Ali
(aali@crowell.com) is cochair of
Crowell & Moring LLPs International
Dispute Resolution Practice. He has
represented parties worldwide in
international construction, investment,
and commercial arbitrations.
080 ProjMgmt.indd 83 11/5/07 4:54:03 PM
|
November 2007 84
RETROSPECTIVE
This month in POWER
November 1884
POWER began its life in October 1882 as a
tabloid-size publication originally entitled
Steam. About the same time, two young
Boston advertising salesmen decided to
launch a new magazine about textile mill
steam plants, called POWER. They bought
Steam prior to publishing POWERs first is-
sue, so early issues of this magazine car-
ried the flag POWER, with which is incor-
porated Steam (Figure 1).
The editors introduction to the first
issue of POWER established the editorial
standards we continue to follow today: It
will be aim of the Editors to make this
journal an interesting and valuable practi-
cal medium of instruction and of exchange
November 1907
Early issues of POWER covered many of the new maritime en-
gines powering the generation of luxury ocean liners that en-
tered service early in the 20th century (Figure 3). A special
report this month focused on the power plant of the Cunard
Steamship Line Shipping Co.s RMS Lusitania, which had re-
cently successfully completed her first round trip from the UK
to New York City, crossing the Atlantic Ocean in less than six
days. The Lusitania, at the time of her launch, was the most
powerfully-engined vessel afloat, having some 70,000 horse-
power and a guaranteed speed of 24 knots in all weathers.
The main propelling machinery consists of two high-
pressure ahead, two low-pressure ahead, and two astern
turbines of the Parson type. Owing to the immense size of
these turbines, and in order to comply with the admiraltys
requirements as to subdivision, the main propelling and
auxiliary machinery are located in nine different water-
tight compartments.
There are 23 double-ended and two single-ended boilers
in the ship, situated in four separate water-tight compart-
ments. The forward boiler room has two single-ended and
four double-ended boilers, and in each of the other rooms
there are located six double-ended boilers in groups of three
athwart the ship. The double-ended boilers are 17 feet in
diameter by 22 feet long.
The Lusitania was sunk by the German submarine U-20
on May 7, 1915, off the coast of Ireland as she was com-
pleting her 201st transatlantic voyage. The loss of 128
Americans on board precipitated Americas entry into the
First World War.
1. POWER, with which is incorporated
Steam was first published in November
1884.
3. The engine room of the RMS Lusitania.
2. The Ide Engine
084 Retro.indd 84 11/5/07 4:24:38 PM
November 2007
|
POWER 85
RETROSPECTIVE
of ideas among power users, technically
accurate enough to stand the criticism of
the expert, and yet so popular in style and
matter as to appeal directly to the fifty
thousand or more power-using constitu-
ents whom it is intended to reach.
Among the subjects treated will be
how to buy, set, fire, and clean boilers;
how to select, set up, run, repair, and take
care of steam, gas and hot-air engines,
and all other motors . . .
The style at which we aim will be terse
and clear; the matter so far as in us lies,
fresh and varied. The editorial policy will
be one of enterprise, through indepen-
dence, and straightforwardness.
Such a paper Power is intended to
be. It will treat only of producing and
carrying power; and will reach, as far as
possible, all interested in these subjects.
We believe that it will be by far the best
medium published, in which to advertise
power generators and transmitters.
The very first feature article reviewed
a new steam engine that was prominently
displayed on the issues cover. The edi-
tors described the Ide Engine (Figure 2)
as show[ing] a most careful apprecia-
tion, on the part of its builder, of the fact
that an engine should deliver power with
economical steam expenditure and little
wear, and be convenient to erect, adjust,
run and repair. The first thing that struck
us on examining the plans, was the exten-
sive use of steel and gun metal on work-
ing and wearing parts.
The lower part of the frame resembles
[a] box girder with cross ribs; there is a
straight line vertical web . . . and a top
piece straight in elevation and curved in
plan, suggestive of Corliss. The bed piece
has two of its bolt holes directly under
the main centre, facilitating erection in
level and line.
The editors were still working out the in-
evitable kinks in a new publication and in a
useful equipment review; the report never
stated the horsepower developed, fuel con-
sumption, price, or size of the engine.
November 1957
Research on the commercial use of nuclear
power was a major U.S. focus in the mid-
1950s because nuclear plants promised
power too cheap to meter and simplicity
of operation (Figure 5). The first U.S. com-
mercial nuclear power plantlocated in
Shippingport, Pennsylvania, and powered
by a pressurized water reactor rated at 60
MWreached full load in December 1957.
POWER editors noted in Nuclear Notes
that the hard lessons of experience show
that nuclear power development is tough
and costlymore than originally ex-
pected. Economic and profitable atomic
energy generation seems farther off in
the future than first estimated; especially
when compared to relatively cheap fos-
sil fuels now available here. England and
Europe, squeezed between growing power
demands and diminishing fuel reserves, al-
ready face rocketing costs of imported fu-
els. This makes it easier to prove in costly
nuclear power. Their needs may help keep
our atomic industry going by furnishing a
market for equipment while we keep push-
ing development and research.
5. Do you realize how atomic power will
simplify things?
November 1932
Power facilities that rely on internally generated power of-
ten find that running multiple units in load-sharing mode
provides the greatest economic benefit when meeting widely
varying daily loads. Load sharing today is accomplished with
merely a switch setting on the governor for typical engine
generators or small steam turbines. That was not the case 75
years ago, when the editors reviewed the latest load-sharing
design, which was based on mechanical linkages and cam-
shafts (Figure 4).
Program load control has been developed to improve the
operating efficiency of groups of turbine generators. . . .
The application of automatic frequency or automatic load
control in conjunction with program load control allows
the use of the entire operating capacity of the station for
regulation and maintains the minimum turbine heat con-
sumption for all loads. The valve auxiliary switches (Fig-
ure 4) initiate the movement of the selector switch and
may therefore be considered as the brains of the program
control. The switches [are] of such a design as to permit
continuous motion without excessive wear and to provide
means for close adjustment. A cam-type switch meeting
those requirements was designed and installed on a turbine
governor. The valve linage causes an angular movement of
approximately 40 deg. and gearing at one end of the cam
switch multiplies this movement eight times.
4. Turbine-valve switches actuated by the governor mechanism
initiate movement of the selector switch [for parallel operation of
two prime movers].
084 Retro.indd 85 11/5/07 4:24:42 PM
|
November 2007 86
NEW PRODUCTS
TO POWER YOUR BUSINESS
Remote pipeline inspection tool
QuickView, the only pipeline zoom inspection camera to of-
fer distance-to-target measurement, now also measures pipe
diameter and manhole depth with the push of a button. Us-
ers of the patented QuickView can now instantly know the
size of the line theyre inspecting as well as its distance
below grade, making it an invaluable tool for rapid, afford-
able infrastructure surveys.
In Pipe Measurement Mode, QuickView measures the di-
ameter of any pipe whose end can be viewed within the
cameras field of view. An operator simply toggles to Pipe
Measurement Mode, aligns the measurement grid that ap-
pears onscreen, and presses Measure. The pipe diameter
reading appears instantly onscreen. QuickView measures
pipe diameters from 4 to 12 inches in 2-inch increments.
With 216:1 zoom, onscreen distance measurement, and HID
lamps, QuickView captures video as far as 250 feet down lines
from 8 to 60 inches in diameter. (www.envirosight.com)
Free temperature sensor giveaway
Moore Industries is making you an offer you cant refuse. The company is giving away
a free WORM flexible RTD or thermocouple sensor to any qualified user who wants
one. The offer includes a choice of a thermocouple or RTD sensor, 24 inches of
extension wire, and an installation kit with all the necessary mounting com-
ponents, including a spring, spacers, and a clip. The free WORM sensor will
fit into virtually all new or existing thermowells with a 0.260-in. ID.
The WORM is a flexible sensor and can fit into existing thermowells
that have problems, such as caked debris, or those that are sagging
from exposure to extreme heat. The WORM also simplifies maintenance
procedures, because a WORM can be cut to fit any application. A main-
tenance tech no longer has to take a dozen different rigid sensors into
the field in hopes of finding one that fits; instead, he or she can take
a single WORM and trim it to fit almost any length of thermowell. This
feature also simplifies spare parts inventories at a plant.
We are convinced that users will buy WORM sensors once they realize
how versatile and accurate they are, and how much the WORM can save
them in maintenance time and spare parts inventories, says Scott Saunders,
vice president of sales and marketing at Moore Industries. The WORM sells it-
self, once a user gives it a try. For that reason, we are offering a free WORM sensor
to any customer that is interested in solving their sensor headaches.
To obtain a free WORM sensor, go to www.miinet.com/freeworm, fill out the form, and
hit send. (www.miinet.com)
Measure the hot spots
Wahl Instruments Inc. has added a high-temperature
model to its line of Wahl Heat Spy thermal imaging
cameras that measure tem-
peratures in the range of
392F to 1,652F. This afford-
able thermal imager is light,
compact, easy to operate,
and designed for hand-held
use. It also features a tripod
mount for remote use.
The HSI3002 is fully ra-
diometric and measures the
temperature of every pixel.
Easy Report software allows
users to easily insert multiple
images with data taken during a site
survey to produce an inspection report.
The imager features a 160 x 120 pixel,
uncooled, microbolometer array, capable
of displaying high-resolution, real-time,
thermal images on a bright 3.5-inch color
LCD display with LED backlight. The Class
II laser precisely identifies the problem
hot spot shown on the marked center of
the display.
Two measurement cursors, movable
anywhere in the image, provide tempera-
ture readings at each cursor location and
indicate real-time differential temperature measure-
ment between the two points anywhere along the
temperature range. High-quality images can be cap-
tured and manipulated online, or problems can be
resolved on the spot. (www.palmerwahl.com)
086 NewProd.indd 86 11/5/07 4:24:55 PM

November 2007
|
POWER 87
NEW PRODUCTS
Inclusion in New Products does not imply endorsement by POWER magazine.
Mercury-free magnetic switch
Jerguson is offering retrofit kits for its mercury-based level switches that feature a tri-magnet switch
from the Clark-Reliance Instrumentation and Controls Group. Replacement kits are available to up-
grade a wide variety of existing mercury switches, enabling replacement of the switch and enclosure
without removal of the existing chamber.
In operation, the float or displacer drives a stainless steelsheathed permanent magnet attached to
the float rod in the glandless pressure tube. As the float rises and falls with a changing liquid level,
the float assembly moves upward inside the pressure tube. A switch mechanism mounted inside the
enclosure adjacent to the pressure tube is activated by the rising or falling magnet.
The vertical movement of the float magnet in the pressure tube simultaneously actuates the sec-
ondary and switch magnets within the switch mechanism to operate the contacts. This three-magnet
system enables the float magnet to pass the switch and actuate switch mechanisms at other levels.
Switch mechanisms that are actuated will not reset until the float magnet actuates the switch mecha-
nism on a falling level.
The switch mechanism is based on a unique Jerguson three-dimensional magnet design in which
the snap action occurs because the same pole of two magnets will repulse each other. The magnet
mounted on the float rod causes the secondary magnet to rotate as it passes up and down. The switch
magnet is repelled by the secondary and snaps to the opposite side. This causes the cradle to pivot,
moving the push rods that operate the switch contacts. The result is positive snap action interlock
switching.
Four different switch mechanisms are available. A 10-amp mechanism is designed for general-pur-
pose duties up to 480F. For high-temperature applications up to 750F and 5 amps, a high-temperature
mechanism is offered. (www.clark-reliance.com)
Tighten up your LOTO procedures
Lock-out/tag-out systems work on the principle of individually keyed padlocks
and keys that workers can use to lock off machinery or controls. The locked
machinery or controls then cannot be operated while the worker might be at
risk due to their use. Usually used during machinery maintenance, this simple,
reassuringly mechanical method of improving personal safety is as reliably ef-
fective as it is straightforward.
Industrial safety specialist Castell Iso-Lok has developed a new Multi-Clasp
padlock for LOTO procedures. The new lock features a standard fixed-width hasp
shape and now sports a highly visible, safety-color-coded, polyester powder-
coated finish.
The new Multi-Clasp has room for six individual padlocks to be attached,
allowing multiple workers to lock off the same machine. The lock will not open
until each separate padlock has been removed. This ensures that the locked-off
equipment cannot be reactivated until everyone has completed their work and
safe operation can resume. (www.castell.com)
Wireless machinery health transmitters
Emerson Process Management recently unveiled the CSI 9420 Machinery Health Transmitter. This wireless vibration
transmitter provides monitoring of mechanical equipment delivering predictive diagnostics for improved reliability
and plant safety.
As a component of Emersons Smart Wireless solutions, the rugged industrial trans-
mitter connects quickly, easily, and economically to any machine. Through Emersons
PlantWeb digital plant architecture, the transmitter delivers vibration information
over a highly reliable wireless self-organizing network for use by operations and
maintenance personnel. Configuration, diagnostics, and alerts from the wireless
vibration transmitter are available in AMS Suite predictive maintenance software.
Vibration data are also available in data historians or any control system for trend-
ing and analysis with other process parameters. In addition to measuring overall
vibration, the CSI 9420 Machinery Health Transmitter includes PeakVue technol-
ogy for advanced bearing diagnostics.
The wireless vibration transmitter will be available for shipment in early
2008. (www.emersonprocess.com)
086 NewProd.indd 87 11/5/07 4:24:59 PM
|
November 2007 88
JOURNEYMAN LINEMAN
North Slope Borough Power & Light
City of Barrow, Alaska
$75,000 + annually, + benefts
North Slope Borough Power & Light is seeking qualifed applicants for the po-
sition of Journeyman Lineman. NSB Power & Light operates and maintains
seven power plants located on the north slope of the Brooks Range. The vil-
lages we serve are Anaktuvuk Pass, Atqasuk, Kaktovik, Nuiqsut, Point Hope,
Point Lay, and Wainwright approx. 1200 customers total. Diesel fred power
plants with < 2MW capacity, each. 4160/7200 and 7200/12470 volt transmis-
sion systems. This position installs, repairs, and maintains high voltage electri-
cal distribution systems using a work order/call out program. The Journeyman
Lineman reports directly to the Power Systems Manager.
Requirements are a State of Alaska Fitness card for Journeyman Lineman or
equivalent, from your state. A valid Commercial Drivers License and fve years
of electrical lineman work as a journeyman or frst class lineman. Arctic experi-
ence preferred.
Position is open until flled
Send resumes to:
PO Box 69
Barrow, Alaska 99723-0069
Attn: Jerry Cogdill, Power Systems Manager
Jerry.Cogdill@north-slope.org
Management Technical Contract
Nuclear Fossil Renewable T&D
Sanford Rose Associates
265 Main St. Akron OH. 44308
888-333-3828 Fax 330-762-6161
resume@SROCPower.com
Best Recruiters in Power!
088 Classifieds.indd 88 11/5/07 4:51:55 PM
Sheppard T. Powell Associates, LLC, Baltimore,
MD, is seeking experienced professionals with a BS
or MS degree in engineering/science for a career pro-
viding unbiased water treatment consulting services
to various industries. Must have a solid understand-
ing of water chemistry and be highly experienced in
the power and/or pulp and paper industry. Experience
with fue gas desulfurization (FGD) systems, boiler
and HRSG steam/water cycle chemistry, chemical
cleaning, inspections, makeup water treatment, cool-
ing water treatment, and/or wastewater treatment is
preferred. Must be capable of working independently,
demonstrate good verbal and written communica-
tions skills and be willing to travel. Will involve internal
inspections of boiler/HRSG drums, deaerators, and
condensers. Must have current United States pass-
port. Fax (410-327-7506) or email (rdb@stpa.com)
resumes and salary requests.
CONSULTANT/ENGINEER
REQUEST FOR QUALIFICATIONS
DESIGN-BUILD REFURBISHMENT OF A REFUSE
DERIVED FUEL RESOURCE RECOVERY FACILITY
RFQ NO. 08-207/SB
The Solid Waste Authority of Palm Beach County, Florida
(Authority) is requesting the submittal of qualifcations for
the design-build refurbishment of its 1,800 ton per day refuse
derived fuel North County Resource Recovery Facility. The
planned procurement consists of this Request for Qualifca-
tions (RFQ), with a resulting pre-qualifcation of frms, and
a Request for Proposals (RFP) to the pre-qualifed frms. It is
anticipated that pre-qualifed frms will have an opportunity to
comment during formation of the subsequent RFP procure-
ment document.
The RFQ document will be available Monday through Fri-
day, 8:00 am - 5:00 pm, beginning on Wednesday, October
31, 2007 at the Authoritys Administrative Offces, 7501
North Jog Road, West Palm Beach, FL 33412. Interested
frms may also call 561-640-4000 ext. 4527 to obtain a copy
or with any questions.
There will be a non-mandatory pre-submittal conference fol-
lowed by a site visit on Wednesday, November 14, 2007, 9:00 am
at the Authoritys Administrative Offces open to all interested
parties.
The Authority will receive the Statements of Qualifcation
(SOQ) at the above address until 5:00 pm on Wednesday, Janu-
ary 2, 2008. Sealed submittals shall be plainly marked RFQ
No. 08-207/SB Refurbishment of NCRRF. SOQ received after
said time will be returned unopened.
Minority/Women/Small Business Enterprise (M/W/SBE) frms
are strongly encouraged to participate as prime contractors or
suppliers/subcontractors to primes.
REQUEST FOR QUALIFICATIONS
Wood Harbinger, a consulting engineering rm
located in Bellevue, WA seeks a Senior Level
Mechanical Engineer for its Industrial Division.
The candidate shall be experienced in industrial
plant environments with eld experience in
power and thermal generation, process and
infrastructure systems. Responsibilities would
include conceptualizing the mechanical design
solutions for major projects; planning, scheduling,
and conducting mechanical engineering work;
and supervising/leading the design and ongoing
progress of a project, including coordinating with
other disciplines.
Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering
and/or registered Professional Engineer
12-18 years of experience in the industry as a
Mechanical Engineer/Designer
Good communication skills, both written and
verbal
To submit your resume, please visit:
woodharbinger.com/careers.aspx
Afrmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer
Seni or Level Mec hani c al Engi neer

POWER SYSTEMS MANAGER
Barrow, Alaska
(Salary: $64,313 - $80,391 annual DOQ plus benefts)
North Slope Borough Power & Light is seeking qualifed applicants for the posi-
tion of Power Systems Manager. NSB Power & Light operates and maintains
seven power plants located on the north slope of the Brooks Range. The vil-
lages we serve are Anaktuvuk Pass, Atqasuk, Kaktovik, Nuiqsut, Point Hope,
Point Lay, and Wainwright -approximately 1200 customers total. Diesel fred
power plants with <2 MW capacity, each. Annual Enterprise Fund operating
budget of $12.5 million. The division has 45 full time employees. This position
is responsible for the overall management and administration functions of the
division including operations, planning, fnancial management, regulatory com-
pliance and personnel. The Power Systems Manager reports directly to the
NSB Utility Manager.
Requirements are a Bachelors degree in Operations Management, Business
Administration or related feld; or fve years of work experience in related indus-
try in an arctic environment; or an equivalent combination of education and/or
experience. Five years of work experience with Federal, State and Local laws,
regulatory and procedures relating to the Electric Power Utility industry. Ability
to obtain Alaska Drivers License is required.
Send resume to:
North Slope Borough
Department of Public Works
PO Box 69
Barrow, AK 99723
Attn: John Miller, Deputy Director
Utilities/CIPM
Opportunities in Operations and Maintenance,
Project Engineering and Project Management,
Business and Project Development,
First-line Supervision to Executive Level Positions.
Employer pays fee. Send resumes to:
POWER PROFESSIONALS
P.O. Box 87875
Vancouver, WA 98687-7875
email: dwood@powerindustrycareers.com
(360) 260-0979 l (360) 253-5292
www.powerindustrycareers.com
Plant Documentation
Fossil/GT/CC/SCR
Rapid Turnaround, Low Overhead
Operating Procedures, Turnover Sets, Training
Rydnbok
3318 Highway 5 Suite 269
Douglasville, GA 30135
(678) 361-5299
info@rydnbok.com
Classied Advertising
Myla Dixon
Phone: 832-242-1969 Ext. 311
Fax: 832-251-8963
mylad@powermag.com
November 2007
|
POWER 89
|
November 2007 90
READER SERVICE NUMBER 206
George H. Bodman
Pres. / Technical Advisor
Ofce 1-800-286-6069
Ofce (281) 359-4006
PO Box 5758 E-mail: blrclgdr@aol.com
Kingwood, TX 77325-5758 Fax (281) 359-4225
GEORGE H. BODMAN, INC.
Chemical cleaning advisory services for
boilers and balance of plant systems
BoilerCleaningDoctor.com
POWER PLANT BUYERS MART
|
November 2007 90
Need a Thorough Mix?
Ash, coal, sludges, what do You need to mix?
Get a thorough mix with:
Pugmill Systems, Inc.
P.O. Box 60
Columbia, TN 38402 USA
ph: 931/388-0626 fax: 931/380-0319
www.pugmillsystems.com
Cogen Plant/
Components for Sale
turbine/generator 7.5/(9.3) Mw GE, $80k +
boiler, B&W, uid bed, 100k#/hr, $300k +
precipitator, electrostatic, $50k + cooling tower,
$45k... $450k for all ... central Calif ... pics on
Photo Bucket, search image kdqmor cogen
(559) 855-8228, ringo@netptc.net
Norm Harty - The First and Last Word in Professional Dynamiting,
serving you since 1964. We have pioneered, perfected and proven
the methods of explosive cleaning the worst of s\lag or ash out in
a matter of hoursin all boiler areas. We specialize in Electric
Utility work and have over 4000 jobs to our credit. Call the
NUMBER ONE COMPANY for the quickest response and most
efcient job for your emergency needs and scheduled outages.
N.B. Harty General Contractors, Inc.
Phone: 573-624-4645 or 573-624-4588
Fax: 573-624-4589
E-mail: norm@nbharty.com

www.nbharty.com
11-07 Power Classified.indd 90 11/8/07 12:07:00 PM
August 2007
|
POWER www.powermag.com 91 November 2007
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POWER www.powermag.com 91 August 2007
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POWER www.powermag.com 91
<6ppm NOx
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Rentals
Leases
Sales
San Francisco Baton Rouge Birmingham Calgary Charlotte Chicago Cleveland
Hamilton, Ont Houston Philadelphia Seattle
READER SERVICE NUMBER 209 READER SERVICE NUMBER 214
SE HABLA ESPAOL
WE BUY - SELL - APPRAISE
Celebrating Over 90 Years In Business
YOUR #1 SOURCE FOR USED/REBUILT
ELECTRICAL POWER EQUIPMENT

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www.belyeapower.com
phone: (610) 515-8775
faxes: (610) 515-1263
(610) 258-1230
sales@belyeapower.com
2200 Northwood Avenue, Easton, Pennsylvania 18045-2239
POWER PLANT
BUYERS MART
November 2007
|
POWER 91
CONDENSER OR GENERATOR AIR COOLER TUBE PLUGS
THE CONKLIN SHERMAN COMPANY, INC.
Easy to install, saves time and money.
ADJUSTABLE PLUGS- all rubber with brass insert. Expand it,
install it, reverse action for tight t.
PUSH PULL PLUGS-are all rubber, simply push it in.
Sizes 0.530 O.D. to 2.035 O.D.
Tel: (203) 881-0190 Fax:(203)881-0178
E-mail: Conklin59@aol.com www.conklin-sherman.com
OVER ONE MILLION PLUGS SOLD
JOHN R. ROBINSON INC.
Condenser & Heat Exchanger Tools
Tube Cleaners, Plugs & Leak Detectors
CELEBRATES 100
th
ANNIVERSARY
www.johnrrobinsoninc.com
e-mail jrrinc@earthlink.net
Tel. (718) 786-6088 Fax (718) 786-6090
Combustion, Energy
and
Steam Specialists Ltd.
Surplus Power Plant
Specialists in the Valuation,
Marketing, Sourcing, and
Relocation of Surplus Power
Plant & Auxiliary Equipment
Tel: +44 (0)1856 851177 Fax: +44 (0)1856 851199
E.mail: enquiries@cess.co.uk Web: www.cess.co.uk
11-07 Power Classified.indd 91 11/8/07 12:07:03 PM
POWER
EQUIPMENT CO.
444 Carpenter Avenue, Wheeling, IL 60090
wabash
24 / 7 EMERGENCY SERVICE
BOILERS
20,000 - 400,000 #/Hr.
DIESEL & TURBINE GENERATORS
50 - 25,000 KW
GEARS & TURBINES
25 - 4000 HP
WE STOCK LARGE INVENTORIES OF:
Air Pre-Heaters Economizers Deaerators
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Valves Tubes Controls Compressors
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847-541-5600 FAX: 847-541-1279
WEB SITE: www.wabashpower.com
FOR SALE/RENT
Boiler Cleaning Professionals
Explosive Deslagging Services Camera Assisted On-line Blasting Detonating Cord and Overhead
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On-line Radiant Recovery with Shatter Blast Bead Impact Deslagging
Big Water High Pressure Washing Air Pre-heater Baskets, Furnace + Boiler Washing
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Vacuum Services, Wet + Dry Fly Ash, Sludges, Silo + Vessel Evacuation
Number One In Safety and Compliance. Privately Owned and Operated
24/7 Emergency Response From Many US Locations
800-866-6247 www.naisinc.com
e-mail: naisinc@naisinc.com
POWER PLANT BUYERS MART
CFB Boiler
Steaming Capacity: 700,000 lb/hr of
superheated steam
Pressure: 1250 psig
Temperature: 1000 F at main steam
stop outlet valve
Feedstock: PRB Coal
Fabrication is partially complete.
Reduce your project schedule by
purchasing the rights to this CFB Boiler.
For complete details please contact:
Keith Schick, 720-945-0641
For Sale
NEED CABLE? FROM STOCK
Copper Power to 69kv; Bare ACSR & AAC Conductor;
Underground UD-P & URD, PILC-AEIC; Interlock Armor to
35kv; Copper Instrumentation & Control; Thermocouple
BASIC WIRE & CABLE
Fax (773) 539-3500 Ph. (800) 227-4292
E-Mail: basicwire@basicwire.com
WEB SITE: www.basicwire.com
STGUs - 15 MW GE condensing 850#
steam pressure 3/60/13,800 volts -
GTGUs - 20 MW Brown Boveri oil red cheap
BOILERS - 200,000#/HR Combustion Engineering
package - 600# steam pressure - gas red
- 25,000#/HR ABCO - 150# steam pressure -
natural gas and propane red
We buy and sell transformers, boilers, steam
turbine generator units, gas turbine generator
units, diesel engine generator units, etc.
INTERNATIONAL POWER MACHINERY CO.
50 Public Square - Terminal Tower, Suite 834
Cleveland, OH 44113 U.S.A.
PH 216-621-9514/FAX 216-621-9515
Email: kernx06@sbcglobal.net Web: www.intlpwr.com
POWER
|
November 2007 92
POWER
Classifed {klas-uh-fahyd},
adj. The designated part of
a publication that contains
advertisements belonging to
a specic group or category.
Dene your
advertising in
POWER
Recruit quality professionals
Buy and sell products
and services
Showcase your products
List RFPs and Renewable
Supply Credits
To designate your space,
contact Myla Dixon
832-242-1969
mylad@powermag.com
PRODUCT Showcase
November 2007
|
POWER 93
|
November 2007 94
Reader
Service
Number
ABB Inc.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 . . . . .18
www.abb.com
Alstom Power SA. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 . . . . .10
www.alstom.com
Ansaldo Caldaie. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cov 3 . . . . .33
www.ansaldoboiler.it
AP&M. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 . . . . . .5
www.apm4parts.com, www.apmfieldservices.com
AREVA NP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 . . . . .26
www.us.areva.com
Babcock & Wilcox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cov 4 . . . . .34
www.babcock.com
Bechtel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 . . . . .12
www.bechtel.com
Black & Veatch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 . . . . . .3
www.bv.com
Cablesafe Hooks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 . . . . .11
www.cablesafe.com
CD-Adapco . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 . . . . .14
www.cd-adapco.com
Coade, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 . . . . .30
www.coade.com
Day & Zimmermann . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 . . . . . .7
www.dayzim.com
Diamond Power International . . . . . . . . . . . 57 . . . . .28
www.diamondpower.com
Eimco Water Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 . . . . .27
www.glv.com
ExxonMobil. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cov 2 . . . . . .1
www.exxonmobil.com
Fisher/Emerson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 . . . . . .4
www.fisher.com/nP
General Electric . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 . . . . . .2
www.ge.com/energy
General Physics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 . . . . .29
www.gpilearnwbt.com
Hitachi Power Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 . . . . .20
www.hitachi.com
IGAPE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34, 35 . . . . .19
www.investingalicia.com
Intek . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 . . . . .31
www.intek.com
Luminant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 . . . . .13
www.luminant.com
Magnetrol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 . . . . . .8
www.magnetrol.com
Martin Engineering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 . . . . .24
www.martin-eng.com
Orion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 . . . . .25
www.orioninstruments.com
Power Systems Mfg. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 . . . . . .6
www.powermfg.com
ProEnergy Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 . . . . .23
www.proenergyservices.com
Schmidt Industries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 . . . . .15
E-mail: schmidtind@aol.com
Solvay Chemicals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 . . . . .22
www.solvaychemicals.us/solvair
Superbolt, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 . . . . .16
www.superbolt.com
The Shaw Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 . . . . .33
www.shawgrp.com
United Brotherhood of Carpenters . . . . . . . 43 . . . . .21
www.carpenters.org
Westinghouse Electric . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 . . . . .17
www.westinghousenuclear.com
Yuba Heat Transfer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 . . . . . .9
www.yuba.com
ADVERTISERS INDEX
Enter reader service numbers on the FREE Product Information Source card in this issue.
Page
Reader
Service
Number Page
CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING
Pages 88-93. To place a classified ad, contact:
Myla Dixon, POWER magazine, 832-242-1969,
mylad@tradefairgroup.com.
Statement of Ownership, Management, and Circulation (Requester Publications Only)
1. Publication Title: POWER 2. Publication Number: 0032-5929 3. Filing
Date:10/1/2007 4. Issue Frequency: Monthly 5. Number of Issues Published Annually: 12
6. Annual Subscription Price $59. 7. Complete Mailing Address of Known Office of
Publication: Access Intelligence, 4 Choke Cherry Road, 2nd Floor, Rockville, MD 20850-
4024 8. Complete Mailing Address of Headquarters or General Business Office of
Publisher: Access Intelligence, LLC, 4 Choke Cherry Road, 2nd Floor, Rockville, MD
20850-4024 9. Full Names and Complete Mailing Addresses of Publisher, Editor, and
Managing Editor: Publisher: Brian K. Nessen, 11000 Richmond Avenue, Suite 500,
Houston, TX 77042 Editor: Dr. Robert Peltier, 7253 S. Terrace Lane, Tempe, AZ 85283
Managing Editor: Gail Reitenbach, 35 Carissa Road, Sante Fe, NM 87508 10. Owner if the
publication is owned by a corporation, give the name and address of the corporation
immediately followed by the names and addresses of all stockholders owning or holding 1
percent or more of the total amount of stock: Veronis Suhler Stevenson, 350 Park Avenue,
New York, NY 10022 11. Known Bondholders, Mortgagees, and Other Security Holders
Owning or Holding 1 Percent or More of Total Amount of Bonds, Mortgages, or other
Securities: None 12. Not Applicable. 13. Publication: POWER 14. Issue Date for
Circulation Data: September 2007
Average No. of No. Copies
15. Extent and Nature of Circulation: Copies Each Issue of issue
During Preceding Nearest to
12 Months Filing Date
a. Total Number of Copies (Net press run) 57,879 62,773
b. Legitimate Paid and/or Requested Distribution
(1) Individual Paid/Requested Mail Subscriptions 55,039 60,050
(2) Copies Requested by Employers 0 0
(3) Sales Through Dealers and Carriers, Street Vendors 0 0
(4) Requested Copies Distributed by Other Mail Classes 0 0
c. Total Paid and/or Requested Circulation 55,039 60,050
d. Nonrequested Distribution (By Mail and Outside the Mail)
(1) Nonrequested Copies, Sample copies, Requests Over 3
years old, Requests induced by a Premium, Bulk Sales and
Requests including Associate Requests. Names obtained
from Business Directories, Lists, and other sources) 2,280 2,598
(2) Nonrequested Copies Distributed Through the USPS
by Other Classes of Mail 0 0
(3) Nonrequested Copies Distributed Outside the Mail
(Include Pickup Stands, Trade Shows, Showrooms,
and Other Sources) 560 125
e. Total Nonrequested Distribution 2,840 2,723
f. Total Distribution (Sum of 15c and 15e) 57,879 62,773
g. Copies not Distributed 0 0
h. Total 57,879 62,773
i. Percent Paid and/or Requested Circulation 95.1% 95.7%
16. Publication of Statement of Ownership for a Requester
Publication is required and will be printed in the November 2007 issue.
17. Signature of Owner: Don Pazour Date: 10/1/07
I certify that all information furnished on this form is true and complete. I understand that anyone who
furnished false or misleading information on this form or who omits material or information requested on the
form may be subject to criminal sanctions (including fines and imprisonment) and/or civil sanctions (including
civil penalties).
094 AdIndex.indd 94 11/5/07 4:54:41 PM
094 AdIndex.indd 95 11/5/07 4:54:42 PM
|
November 2007 96
LEGAL & REGULATORY COMMENTARY
D
uring my 30-year career at the American Public Power
Association (APPA), Ive had a front-row seat for most
of the major events in our industrys recent history. So
it disturbs me when my view of our history is 180 degrees out
of phase with how others perceive it. Such was the case with
the preamble to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commissions
(FERCs) June 2007 notice of proposed rulemaking (NOPR) to
improve the operation of centralized wholesale power markets
run by regional transmission organizations (RTOs).
I find the commissions view of history clouded by compe-
tition-colored glasses. In an apparent effort to buttress its
policies promoting centralized spot markets, the commission
misstates historyin particular the U.S. Congresss rationale
for passing the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978
(Purpa). In the world according to FERC, the enactment of Purpa
was the first hug in Congresss 30-year embrace of competition
as national policy for bulk power markets.
Today, Congress attaches fanciful names to legislation in an
attempt to convey the bills purpose: No Child Left Behind,
for example. In the 1970s, sponsors were much more direct.
Bills generally contained a statement of congressional purpose.
In Purpas case, it was conservation of energy supplied by
electric utilities; the optimization of the efficiency of use of
facilities and resources by electric utilities; and equitable rates
to electric consumers. That was in keeping with the Carter
administrations national energy policy, which emphasized en-
ergy conservation and efficiency in response to the Arab oil
embargo of 19731974.
Less than 20/20 hindsight
Purpa broke the utility stranglehold on generation and spawned
the cogeneration movement, but it did so to promote conserva-
tion and efficiency, not competition. Purpa did include a wheel-
ing (direct sales) provision that could be viewed as promoting
competition at the wholesale level. However, it actually stifled it.
FERC subsequently described its authority under this provision as
so limited as to be virtually ineffective. And in allowing utili-
ties to wheel power, Congress expressly prohibited any wheeling
orders that would upset existing competitive relationships.
FERCs view of history is equally skewed when it comes to more
recent events. For example, the commission pointed out that by
2000, 24 states and the District of Columbia had opted for some
form of electricity restructuringwithout mentioning that this
trend has peaked and that dozens of states are now reconsider-
ing rolling back deregulation.
The commission also conveniently failed to note that both
the House and Senate were poised to kill FERCs standard market
design (SMD) rulemaking in the Energy Policy Act of 2005an
extraordinary stepand dropped anti-SMD provisions only after
the commission itself terminated the rulemaking. Those moves
may not represent a rejection of wholesale competition, but they
should not be construed as an endorsement of competition in
RTO organized markets, either.
Competition in name only
Congress recognized what FERC does not: that the complex cen-
tralized spot markets run by RTOs do not automatically foster com-
petition. As APPA pointed out in its comments on the June 2007
NOPR, FERC conflates two very different things: past congressional
actions it claims were intended to foster wholesale competition
and the specific design of RTO-run centralized markets.
Harvard professor William Hogan, widely considered the father
of RTO-run centralized markets, said in his comments to the NOPR
that the basic design of the centralized RTO-run markets assumes
a workably competitive market without material monopoly power
in ownership and operation of generating facilities. Arent elec-
tricity markets important enough to warrant reforming them on
the basis of something better than assumptions like those? Now
that we have several years of experience with RTO markets, we
should be testing the assumptions validity.
APPA has commissioned research to test those and other as-
sumptions about market performance. Among other things, the
research has found that studies claiming that RTO markets ben-
efit consumers are not credible, that some companies are making
huge profits selling into the RTO markets, and that rising natural
gas prices are not the sole cause of high electricity prices. Al-
though all of our research was filed with FERC, none of it was
mentioned in the NOPR. Can FERC really believe that higher elec-
tric bills are entirely due to higher gas prices, despite clear evi-
dence to the contrary?
Broaden the inquiry
All this would seem to be enough reason for FERC to launch a
broad investigation into the performance of the centralized mar-
kets, rather than the narrow inquiry into four specific issues that
the NOPR proposes: (1) the role of demand response in organized
markets; (2) increasing opportunities for long-term power con-
tracting; (3) strengthening market monitoring; and (4) the respon-
siveness of RTOs and independent system operators to customers
and other stakeholders. At a recent PJM forum on long-term con-
tracting, three state government representatives separately of-
fered the same warning: The proponents of these markets need
to fix them so that consumers, not just suppliers, begin to see
benefits, or else states will begin taking drastic actions.
In its 2004 report, Restructuring at the Crossroads: FERC Elec-
tric Policy Reconsidered, APPA recommended that FERC find a way
to make RTOs a boon, rather than a bane, to consumers. That would
be a good place to start trying to fix the centralized markets. We
wont get there if we misread our industrys recent history and
ignore the problems in our current wholesale market structure.
Alan H. Richardson is president and CEO of the American
Public Power Association (www.appanet.org).
Centralized markets
are failing consumers
By Alan H. Richardson
096 Commentary.indd 96 11/5/07 4:26:27 PM
No matter what you are looking for.
Ansaldo Caldaie is committed to quality products,
continuous improvement and advances in technology.
Ultra-Supercritical utility boilers, once through Benson HRSGs,
biomass and waste-to-energy boilers. Still, theres more. We are
looking ahead to meet your most challenging demands
and make your business easier...
www.ansal doboi l er.i t
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Please visit us at
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1,000+ illustrations, 200+ tables.
Detailed 22-page index.
Includes fully-searchable CD.
Represents nearly 140 years of power generation leadership by B&W.
Steam is the longest continuously-published engineering text in the world.
Steam.
2007 The Babcock & Wilcox Company. All Rights Reserved.
The Book.

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BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY FOR THE GLOBAL GENERATION INDUSTRY

Vol. 151 No. 11 November 2007 www.powermag.com

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