Abstracts - VGB PowerTech Journal 1-2/2007

Generator Market in Europe: Perspective and Challenge

Johannes Lambertz, Mathias Krahl

The European energy industry will face large challenges in the coming years as it needs to react to strong investment needs in generation capacity in the short term and secure stability in the industry for the future. The technological leadership of the European Energy industry must be secured and strong incentives must be taken to prepare it for the new global competition in plant engineering. (EN)

The Clean Power Technology Platform: Where Oil, Gas, Electricity Meet to Prepare the Future

Kurt Häge

The formation of the European Technology Platform on Zero Emission Fossil Fuel Power Plants (ZEP) confirms the EU’s continued commitment to its leadership role in reducing CO2 emissions and the immense challenge of keeping below 2 °C global warming. Power plant technology based on fossil fuels allows great potential of pro-active climate protection to be developed and tapped parallel in a step-by-step approach. A rise in efficiency as a no-regret strategy has top priority and should be given a corresponding rank in research promotion.

Potentials and Technologies of Renewable Energies in International Markets

Henning Nothdurft, Andreas Wiese

In the past ten years renewable energies have been increasing by double digits annually, without taking the traditional use of hydro-power into consideration. More and more experience with the technologies has allowed the power generation costs for wind, as well as solar, biomass and geothermal, to decrease ever further. The extension of renewables will increase according to the technological progress and the political intentions. (EN)

Garzweiler II - Implementation of a Complex Project

Lars Kulik, Jacobus den Drijver

A low-cost, secure domestic energy source with a long reach like lignite is an asset that is indispensable for a company and an economy. That was the maxim when RWE filed an application for Garzweiler II nearly 20 years ago. It is also the maxim today, where the project is becoming reality. The ecological questions associated with lignite, too, above all as regards CO2 emissions, have found manifold technical answers – in new power plants with higher efficiencies, for example.

Latest Development of Repair- and Test Procedures

Christof Nagel, Rainer Giese

Availability is an essential point in economically operating steam turbines. This implies that outage times for inspections as well as overhauls have to be reduced without lowering the quality of the overhaul procedure. A lot of progress has recently been made with the “phased array“ test procedure, a particular form of ultrasonic testing that permits “in-situ” testing not only of cracks in the rotor steeples but also cracks in the roots of the last stage blades of the LP turbine. Besides, some standard solutions like erosion protection rings for LP turbines with high wetness and repair welding for inlet nozzles and stationary blades have been recently developed.

Online Monitoring for Process Machinery

Wolfram Heinke, Roland Schuhmann, Thomas Rosenberger

Condition monitoring of process machinery using online monitoring systems will be of increasing interest. These systems allow data transfer of the machine condition over a large distance. Due to data storage possibilities a machine history is also available. This paper will present some basic information about online and performance monitoring.

Elimination of Sub-synchronous Vibration of Steam Turbine by Optimisation of Stator-rotor Sealing Design

Karel Duchek, Pavel Albl, Zdenek Simka, Peter Weiser

During commissioning of a TG unit in a combined cycle, the vibration level rose beyond the admissible limit concurrently with increasing power output. The principal vibration component occurred in the sub-synchronous range and it was not possible to reach a nominal power output. The problem was analysed by the software package “Seal”. The modified shape of the steam path decreased. The so-called cross coupled stiffness had negative effects.

Advanced CFD Simulation of FGD Plats – Considering “FGD Niederaußem” as Example

Christoph Hochenauer, Martin Demuth, Klaus Bärnthaler, Christian Weiß

Modern lignite- and hard coal-fired power stations require a flue gas desulphurisation plant (FGD) to meet the current emission regulations. The mostly used FGD in large-scale power plants is the wet scrubber where limestone slurry is used as washing liquid. The limestone slurry is atomised by an array of nozzles which are fed by the spray bank piping. CFD simulations are used to analyse flow phenomena firstly and to optimise the flow field secondly.

Quality Assurance During Application of Coatings from Inquiry to Final Inspection

Stephan Müller, Gunther Schwarz

Most of the steel surfaces of the flue gas desulphurisation plants (FGD) operated in the RWE power plants are rubber-lined in order to protect them from corrosion. The raw and clean gas ducts are mainly coated and rubber linings are applied in absorbers, pipe systems and vessels. The coatings are regularly checked during standstills in order to determine refurbishment. Here pre-qualifications are made according to EU Directive.

Membrane Technology or Ion Exchange – The Retrofit Measure at the Demineralisation Plant in the Ensdorf Power Plant

Thomas Brück

The demineralisation of surface water to boiler feedwater in power plants becomes more and more important. Because of the heavily increased concentration of dissolved salts in the well water of the Ensdorf power plant of VSE Aktiengesellschaft a change to water taken out of the river Saar has been discussed. The fluidised bed ion exchange technology was introduced as an alternative. The experience with the operation of this plant has shown that the fluidised bed technique has significant advantages due to the simple plant design and the low failure rate.

Biofouling Management by the BiosS-Treat® Process for Purification of Surface Water by RO

Ulrich Keil, Herrmann Brüggendick

In most plants biofouling problems are causing frequent membrane blocking with the consequences of degradation of plant performance and finally in many cases of unavoidable replacement of RO elements. In contrast to existing technologies the new biofouling management called BiosS-Treat®, focuses on a preventive concept which is based on microbiological aspects. CEK engineering and STEAG encotec have developed this new design of pre-treatment for the river water RO plant of the STEAG refinery power plant in Leuna, Germany. By BiosS-Treat® the availability of the RO plant was optimised significantly and the operating costs have been reduced to more then 60 % in five years of operation.

The Data Protection Officers

Denis Nicole Rademacher

Data operations should be handled with care, since any abuse of personal data might cause enormous harm. That is why the installation of a data protections officer is necessary if more than twenty stuff members work with data automatically. The function, duties and rights of the data protection officer are defined in the Federal Data Protection Act, but there are also provisions in several other acts like the penal code. The data protection officer is an IT-specialist, teacher, economist and lawyer all in one because he not only detects data protection lacks.