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Engineers will hear directly from OEMs, service providers and end users of steam turbines, generators and large motors about the latest technologies available, together with case studies in plant operations and best practice for turbine and generator service.
Ahead of the 2019 user group, we caught up with James Betts, Steam Turbine Engineer at Uniper Energy, who will be sharing his expertise in his presentation “Commissioning of Steam Turbines: New Build and Post Overhaul”. Read on to hear his thoughts on the challenges facing engineers in the current steam turbine market what he is looking forward to at next month’s user group.
Q: Please can you briefly explain your role and involvement with these assets
James Betts (JB): As a steam turbine engineer for a large generation company I am regularly involved in supporting our internal assets with engineering and technical support to ensure the steam turbines are operating reliably, efficiently, safely and any operation/maintenance issues are dealt with immediately.
Due to our high amount of experience in the power generation industry, we are regularly used as technical experts, consultants and more recently as owners engineers on external customer assets, where we provide full engineering and technical support to external customers - sometimes they are our competitors in the generation market.
Q: What is the number one challenge for those using or benefitting from these technologies in today’s current market?
JB: The main challenge is trying to ensure that the integrity of the steam turbine and all of its components are adequately protected whilst having to operate in “poor operational zones/scenarios”. The “poor operational zones/scenarios” include; 2 shift operation, extended low load operation, part load operation and other similar operation scenarios.
Q: What is the most exciting development in this field at the moment, either within your company or in the industry in general?
JB: The most exciting development is the reverse engineering of problematic/troublesome components by, typically, service oriented companies (i.e. non-OEM). OEM’s tend to be unwilling to undertake costly and innovative design solutions to solve problems found during the common outage schedule. As the reverse engineering and design work required to complete these tasks is relatively complex and away from their standard design procedures. The engineering undertaken by service orientated companies (similar to the one I work for) during the reverse engineering activities is relatively complex.
Q: Where do you see the future of these assets going in the next 5 – 10 years?
JB: The reliance on large steam turbine units will diminish and smaller industrial type of steam turbines, within biomass, EfW, nuclear or similar power plants will be used. It is also likely that large scale CHP schemes using steam turbines will be developed and used extensively within the larger cities.
Q: What other topics are you looking forward to hearing about and discussing at the upcoming user group?
JB: Other generating companies experience and issues related to their plant – such as the reliability/integrity issues related to last stage LP blades, issues found during outages or similar.
Q: Why do you feel it is important for all professionals to join the user group?
JB: Outside of the normal working relationships, there are very few opportunities to speak to professionals from the many different companies involved in steam turbine operation, i.e. insurers, generation companies, service companies, OEM’s, manufacturers etc. Therefore this IMechE event is ideal for networking, discussing interesting topics and seeing what is going on in the wider steam turbine industry.
Want to join this year's user group? Steam Turbine and Generator user Group takes place at Old Trafford, Manchester from 13 - 14 March 2019. Visit www.imeche.org/stug to view the full list of speakers and book your place.