Sessions

The fostering and nurturing of young talent is a central pillar of Initiate, whether an undergraduate or postgraduate student or a young professional at the beginning of their career.

Join us for the POWERGEN & DISTRIBUTECH Joint Networking Party, Power Play. Network with your industry peers at our sports-themed event.

According to Wood Mackenzie, “2020 was a record year for global energy storage.” In its recent research, the firm noted the energy storage market “is expected to grow 27 times by 2030 by adding 70 GWh of storage capacity a year to surpass 729 GWh in 2030.” It’s clear that energy storage systems (ESS) are, and will continue to be, critical in the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy. But despite already demonstrating compelling economics in multiple transmission and distribution grid-connected scenarios, ESS deployments remain limited in urban areas due to safety concerns inherent in legacy battery architectures. Notably, fires involving the Arizona Public Service, NIO and Tesla – along with more than a dozen at South Korean power grid facilities – have heightened questions and concerns about lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery safety. Rightly so. Any number of fires is unacceptable; safety is always paramount. However, Li-ion batteries aren’t inherently unsafe. It’s how they’re architected that directly affects their safety. Innovative Li-ion battery architectures, paired with extensive testing and compliance requirements, are now overcoming the risks of fires and explosions. As a result, industry focus on ESS is shifting to safety, ease of installation and footprint to complement cost and performance metrics. This session will provide actionable insights on near- and longer-term urban ESS opportunities.

Every industry has its jargon. But decarbonization? Climate adaptation? Clean energy transitioning? They’re different. They’re more than just buzzwords; they are the seismic shifts that will be reshaping the power industry for years to come. They’re the issues challenging your customers, elected officials, and competitors to adapt and evolve – perhaps even more quickly than anyone ever imagined. But where is all this going, and who’s leading the way? Join our session as we discuss these and other questions. As an attendee of this session, you will receive your copy of our new 2022 Electric Megatrends Report, which examines the complex issues and trends waging a sweeping transformation across today’s power sector.

EPRI has been developing a digital twin of simple and combined cycle gas turbines over the last 5+ years to provide owners and operators with improved capabilities that typically reside in the expert domain of OEMs and 3rd party service providers. The digital twin is a physics-based digital model of the actual asset. The model is thermodynamic and is created with the intent to support 5 M&D areas: • Integrate with existing M&D tools such as advanced pattern recognition (APR) • Power plant performance prediction and trending such as day, week, and month ahead performance prediction for capacity and generation planning • Health Monitoring and Fault Diagnostics to support asset management with additional health scores and virtual instrumentation enabled by the digital twin model • Monitoring and prediction of both base and part-load performance. Many gas turbine tools have been simplified to work only at full load conditions. To be useful and to improve utilization of collected data, part-load conditions should also be considered. • Outage and repair impacts, including “what-if” capability to understand and quantify potential root causes of less than expected performance improvement or recovery after outage and repairs. This presentation will detail the current work involving the EPRI digital twin for gas turbines. The formulation, methodology, and several real-world use cases will be presented. To date, digital twins have been created and tested for both E and F class frames. These digital twin physical models provide end-users with a methodology to calibrate to their specific unit and efficiently use their choice of monitoring software. Tests have been performed using operator data and have shown good accuracy at detecting anomalous operation and predicting week ahead performance with excellent accuracy. Post-outage impact analysis is also assessed. Use case examples have included using the digital twin to identify causes of post-outage emissions and performance issues, expected impact of degradation and fault conditions, and simulating improvements to operation through part repair and upgrades.

This paper examines some of the unique challenges associated with large scale implementation of utility scale solar PV generation on the US power grid, highlighting some of the issues which have or may potentially arise. The paper covers some of the lessons learned from solar PV output studies including the effects of cloud crossings, as well as overcast days and the somewhat random nature of all renewable generation resources today and what effects this can have on other fossil fueled generation in operation on the grid. Volatility in generation output is one of the main challenges which is found to be increased when large amounts of solar power are added to the grid. The paper seeks to discuss the expected outcomes of higher and higher amounts of random renewable generation and how as responsible engineers the technical community can take steps to manage some of the negative operational and economic impacts of higher volatility before it becomes a more significant problem in the future. The author shares data from output studies carried out on portions of the USA grid, as well as a very useful data set from one of the largest solar research installations in the world having been a member of the team which developed and designed that facility in Australia. The paper shares some of the understanding based on the author’s years of design and development R&D and studies of how the output volatility from larger installations of solar PV can be somewhat mitigated by the close proximity to other generation sources and storage to further mitigate the effects of volatility on the grid.

HRSGs have generally high reliability with regard to pressure parts including tubes, piping and headers but inspection, testing and repairs are more difficult and time consuming than in other boilers. In many cases by the time leaks are evident, damage to the tubes, tube panels (HARPS) and tube modules can be widespread. Repairs can require complete replacement of HARPS and/or entire tube modules. These require advance planning and procurement to be done successfully in an operational HRSG. Extensive repairs and replacements can also be required due to defects in fabrication, construction and commissioning or from accidents such as gas turbine fires and explosions. It is a challenge to develop a consistent reliable life prediction and management program that accounts for unit dispatch, upgrades, layup and fuel changes. Since only a few leaks or tube failures have a critical impact on station performance, major repairs and replacements must be planned and implemented as soon as a large fraction of reliable life is expended. This presentation outlines methods for effective life prediction based on plant history and performance simulation. These results are then translated into Effective Starts/Equivalent Operating Hours format for practical use by owners. Once lifetime limits are reached actions must be taken to design, procure and install or repair these major components. Options for replacement tube module design and fabrication will be discussed including key aspects of quality assurance, scheduling and installation.

This session will explore the potential of scaled green hydrogen hubs in North America to accelerate infrastructure development, reduce the cost of green hydrogen, and support the rapid adoption of green hydrogen to displace fossil fuels. This discussion will: Provide a brief overview of the multi-sectoral applications of green hydrogen for deep decarbonization – such as power generation, mobility, high-heat industrial processes, and ports. Explore the barriers to scaled green hydrogen adoption and the role of hydrogen hubs to help overcome them. Share updates on the green hydrogen hub development progress throughout North America. Provide key regulatory, infrastructure, and market learnings to accelerate hydrogen hub development in other regions.

Ameren Corporation innovation team recognized early on successful Digital transformation includes integrating IOT with Virtual representation of the Plant and enabling it for easy access. A Digital Twin, is a solution and was chosen.  It involved Radiation Protection Monitoring and Visualization of areas, goals for the project included enhancing worker safety, providing real time plant data, and all data is overlaid on the 3D model for use by Operations and Radiation Protection. This involved developing an Application to achieve near real time monitoring of Dosimeter data in addition to tracking the location of the Dosimeter, all data feeds go through OSISOFT PI. Scanning was done with the Leica scanner, a scan of physical areas was the starting point of the project. The POC findings led to the conclusion by the Radiation Protection team at the plant reduction in manual work in capturing time based surveys and offering a real time single pane of glass view by connecting various data collections points and providing a visual representation of a virtual twin of the areas being accessed. The addition of a survey tool to the application gave the ability to automatically update survey information near real time to the single view. The benefits to the organization included improved worker safety and the application can be used to provide live data for pre - job and ALARA briefs.  In addition, FME Checkpoint Camera feed captured the image of the tools entered and exited the area and Artificial Intelligence is used to identify missing parts on tools this allows triggering of FME incident and notification process, thereby, eliminating paper-based process for both FME and Survey scenarios.

The vision for green electricity in Los Angeles and the transformation of the Intermountain Power Site from Coal to Hydrogen generation.