Abstracts - VGB PowerTech Journal 8/2017
The energy transition as the cause of ageing assets in the power industry – new challenges in the maintenance of power plants
Dr. Reinhard Maaß
The energy transition is a sword of Damocles hanging permanently over the present and future. With a stoppage of investments in new plants, the existing portfolio of thermal power stations is facing obsolescence. At the same time, a fifty percent reduction in maintenance is presenting a threat to security of supply. In practice, this means that power plant operators are postponing servicing and maintenance, and running plants to the limits of wear. This endangers power supply in Germany, and additionally threatens jobs in the energy sector and in plant construction. [more...]
Gas engines – Combining efficiency and flexibility with CHP
Klaus Payrhuber, Martin Schneider, Herbert Schaumberger and Martin Thur
Flexible operation is becoming increasingly important as renewable generation capacity on the grid continues to grow. The intermittency of wind and solar power requires backup power in times of low renewable availability, but overcapacity on the grid is increasing as well. At such times, electricity prices will be low, and power to heat can be an attractive solution to stabilize the electric grid. J920 FleXtra gas engine projects in Europe are primarily CHP undertakings. The simultaneous generation of heat and power is essential to increasing fuel utilization and reducing CO2 emissions. The innovative CHP projects outlined in this paper detail how pioneering gas engine solutions can combine both flexibility and efficiency to meet the needs of plant operators around the world.
Service and maintenance strategies for the operators of industrial steam turbine sets by means of Ti2MO
Matthias Humer
Service and maintenance strategies for the operators of industrial steam turbine sets must fundamentally differ from those of the power plant turbine sets because the original energy generation in industry is not a core business. The supply reliability of process heat and process steam is of a signifi-cantly higher value. A service and maintenance package tailored to the needs of industrial customers can do the following in the field of energy genera-tion: Bundling of different service offerings and products to improve their performance and reduce their investment risk; Establishment of medium- and long-term (service) contracts, which allow cost-security and transparency; Products and services adapted to the complex processes; Establishing of a condition monitoring system, which provides reliable data and information of the condition of the plant components - and thus planning reliability. In particular the subject of “maintenance” should be given a more detailed view.
INKaS-SmartLast - Software- and hardware-based total system for pooling decentralized storage capacities for marketing on the primary energy market
Florian Loosen
The share of renewable energies in German power generation is growing. The result is a rapid rise in situations with a surplus of power within the transmission network. To compensate for this situation, batteries will be increasingly used in the future. Against this background, the three medi-um-sized companies PEUS-Testing GmbH, PA-ID GmbH and SIPE GmbH have joined forces to develop a new technology concept for pooling decen-tralized battery storage capacities to participate in the primary control performance market. The SmartBattery is the basis of the current technology concept. The decentralized battery has a minimum size of 30 kWh.
Calculation of the contribution of cyclic load changes to the equivalent operating time of turbogenerators using the Rainflow method
Gunnar Löhning, Kai Kamphöfener and Dietmar Haake
The number of equivalent operating hours (EOH) is an important parameter for the determination of inspection intervals of turbo generators. This parameter takes into account intervals of normal and turning gear operation, the number of starts as well as the impact of load cycling. A closer look to the contribution of load cycling to the equivalent operating hours is taken. To begin with, the application of a cycle counting procedure for obtaining the number and the size of load cycles from operating data is discussed, which enables the analysis of complicated time series. A modified calculation ap-proach using a separate assessment of generator stator and rotor is developed. Finally, the application of the calculation procedure is demonstrated by means of a practical example.
The operating regime, and the control and management of a power plant with one-mill operation
Hans Christian Schröder and Christian Gerber
In power plants, operators want to achieve greater load flexibility. The objective is to operate the installations down into their lower load range. Until now, these new operating conditions have existed or been common only during start-up operation. In relation to this new operating regime for older plant, it should be noted that load conditions for coal-only operation were often defined as a standard that lay above approximately 40 percent. Of fundamental importance here was the view that coal-only operation without supplementary firing presumes a minimum necessary thermal input for safe operation. This means that the plants were initially fired up to a predetermined minimum level of thermal input using oil or gas burners. Only then were individual coal mills successively switched on in a defined operating mode.
High pressure SCR for large two-stroke engines and comparison to conventional SCR high dust applications
Wolfgang Schüttenhelm, Claas Günther and Ralf Jürgens
Since NOx emissions limits are going to be lowered world-wide engine power plants also have to be equipped with denitrification systems. The installa-tion of SCR (Selective Catalytic Reduction) is a new process in Europe because denitrification has to take place in an over-pressure regime. Both pro-cesses for denitrification plants based on the selective catalytic reduction process, i. e. a classical high dust SCR and a high pressure SCR, are compared. The discussed differences of the processes reveal aspects to be considered in the design, which will be reported about in this article as well as experi-ences with a first-of this kind reference plant installed by ERC Technik GmbH.
Robustness of water systems providing make-up water
Marc Slagt and Jochen Henkel
What makes a water treatment system robust? How much do we value system robustness? Nowadays ultrafiltration is largely used as replacement of these pretreatment steps. The application of a mixed bed after a reverse osmosis unit is commonly used. However, is this really the best solution? What other choices exist? How can we increase overall system recovery and robustness by smartly combining different technologies? The presentation introduces combinations of water treatment technologies to optimise operational reliability. Conventional pretreatment options (lime softening, iron coagulation, sand filtration, …) are presented and discussed against latest trends (ultrafiltration, ion exchange scavenger). The overall goal is to break up continued and hardened inside-the-box thinking.
Simulator Assisted Training and Engineering
Wolfgang Wischert
The reliable control of all operating and emergency situations in strict compliance with all rules and regulations is part of the fundamental requirements concerning the training of the operating staff of technical plants. For these tasks simulators equipped with state-of-the-art technologies are available in many sectors. The simulators exactly reproduce the referenced plant in appearance and also in its technical, physical and temporal behaviour. The operating staff encounters the same working conditions and requirements that would or could occur when operating and monitoring their plant in the real world. The aim of this paper is to point out the extended possibilities of using training simulators as an extended test bed for pre-testing plant modifications in conventional and nuclear power stations and for a safe process control. New trends and developments in simulator assisted training and engineering are presented at the “1st European Power Plant Simulator Users Conference”.
Wind Energy in Germany and Europe – Status, potentials and challenges for baseload application. Part 1: Developments in Germany since 2010
Thomas Linnemann and Guido S. Vallana
One essential physical property of wind energy is its large spatiotemporal variation due to wind speed fluctuations. As a result, the total wind fleet output of 18 European countries extending over several thousand kilometres in north-south and east-west direction is highly volatile and exhibits a strong intermittent character. An intuitively expectable significant smoothing of this wind fleet oupput does not occur. In contrast, a highly intermittent wind fleet power output showing significant peaks and minima is observed not only for a single country, but also for the whole of the 18 European countries. Wind energy therefore requires a practically 100 % backup. Part two of this study is under preparation. It covers the analysis of the situation all over Europe.