VGB Innovation Award 2018: Call for Proposals

The VGB Innovation Award honours outstanding performance of young university graduates working in the field of power and heat generation (age limit: 35 years). The work that is to be honoured in this way can relate either to innovation in the operation of power and heat generation plants, or to important new findings in research.

The VGB Innovation Award of the VGB Research Foundation is endowed with 10,000 € and is presented on the occasion of the VGB Congress POWER PLANTS - “Generation in Competition” 2018.

Based on the award guideline, all VGB member companies as well as the members of the Scientific Advisory Board of VGB have the right to propose candidates. Deadline for proposals is April 30, 2018.

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PowerJobs: Current vacancies

The VGB Job Market is offering prospective persons the possibility to develop their career in the field of generation and storage of power and heat. You can find current vacancies on our homepage.

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VGB Quality Award 2018: Proposals Welcome

VGB PowerTech invites all ordinary members to propose a supplier, who has delivered a project of outstanding quality, for the VGB Quality Award 2018.

The VGB Quality Award has been established to increase the awareness for the commercial value of quality and to highlight examples of suppliers who have delivered extraordinary quality in services and products. The VGB Quality Award is covering all electricity and heat generation technologies: hydro, wind energy, biomass, biogas, nuclear, oil-, gas- and coal-fired power stations, as well as storage technologies, and all kind of projects: new build, refurbishment, maintenance, or decommissioning.

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New power plants in Europe: Update February 2018

The survey on new power plants in Europe comprises plants in planning and under construction covering different energy sources. Based on this excel sheet, the planned total output (MW) and the portions of the sources of energy (MW) can be determined.

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Abstracts of Minutes

• Materials and Quality Assurance - 6/7 February 2018
• Materials and Quality Assurance - 19/20 October 2017

Development of lifetime calculation methods to improve boiler components

The joint research project "Calculation methods for boiler components" started at the beginning of the year and will run for three years. The aim is to develop methods for stress calculation of thick-walled components and welded joints as well as for the service life calculation of start-up and shutdown processes, taking creep fatigue interactions into account.

At the same time, tests for verification of P92 components are carried out. The results are then to be incorporated into the relevant regulations. The calculation methods could be used to identify over conservative or nonconservative calculations of critical components. In the long run, this would result in longer inspection intervals, enhanced component reliability and increased power plant flexibility.

The joint research project is funded by the German Federal Government (BMWi).

Contact: Christian Stolzenberger

Load behaviour of hard-faced valve sealing surfaces

The VGB research project on the load behaviour of buffered and unbuffered sealing surfaces of valves in 600/625°C power plants started at the beginning of the year.

The aim of the project is to determine the cause of cracks in valves and the influence of flexible operation. In thermo-static and thermo-cyclic tests, samples from different materials are tested up to 10,000 hours. At the end of the two-year project, a recommendation for the welding process of sealing surfaces with and without buffering is to be made.

This could reduce production time and costs for the manufacturing of hard-faced sealing surfaces of valves, minimize pipe and turbine failures in the future and support flexibility of power plants.

Contact: Christian Stolzenberger

VGB PowerTech Journal 12 (2017): VGB Congress 2017, Power Plant operation

Editorial

Christian Ullrich

VGB`s Technical Services: A successful service for power and heat generation

Some topics:

• The transformation of the European utility landscape (Christophe Brognaux, Jens Burchardt, Jérôme Hervé, Frank Klose, Jan Limet, Tobias Pfingsten, Dominik Thiel and Ferdinand Varga) Download ...
• Detailed verification procedure for power generation plants with directly grid-connected synchronous generators in Germany (Philipp Reindl and Julian Langstädtler)
• ČEZ’s Hydropower Fleet – past, present and future – Current utilisation and prospective new projects (Petr Maralík, Roman Mašika and Václav Lagner) Download ...
• Flexible power plants – Economic low load and house load operation with coal (Reinhard Leithner and Niels Oliver Brinkmeier)

Issue PT Journal 12/2017

Latest media data 2018: Your advertisement in the VGB PowerTech Journal

Also in 2018 the VGB PowerTech Journal will continue to provide current information and latest news and findings about the trends in the power business. Make advantage of our renowned journal and print advertising and address your customers and stakeholders to draw the attention to your products and services.

The focal issues and deadlines are listed in our editorial schedule supporting decision when to place you advertisement for the maximum yield. Get in touch with us, we would be pleased to make a bespoke offer to increase and improve your market position.

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VGB-S-036-00-2017-04-EN - Preservation of Steam and Gas Turbo-Generator Sets - Now available as eBook!

The purpose of this VGB-Standard is to describe the avoidance of damage to steam and gas turbo-generator sets and their ancillary systems as a result of corrosion which may occur during erection (field assembly, cold commissioning prior to first start-up) and plant outages.

This standard provides operators, manufacturers and planners with a basic framework on how and to what extent the steam turbines, gas turbines and generators are to be treated.

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