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Alternative Energy Blog

204 posts

Should you Rethink your PID-based Control Strategy? 18 days ago
Power Blog

87 posts

Renewables Growing Faster than Expected over 8 years ago

Blog - Post List

Alternative Energy Blog: Should you Rethink your PID-based Control Strategy?

Jim Cahill

PID (Proportional-Integral-Derivative)-based control has been commonly used for decades. And while it still is adequate for controlling many process parameters, the time may be right to take a step back and re-evaluate PID-based control in power generation and other industries. Why now? The answer lies in an increasingly diverse energy mix that includes more renewable sources such as solar and wind, which is causing…
- 14 Nov 2023
Alternative Energy Blog: The Price of Decarbonization

Jim Cahill

At the Reuters Energy Transition North America 2023 in Houston, Texas, Emerson’s Bob Yeager joined a panel, Bearing the Load: The Price of Decarbonization. Leaders from Transmission ConEd, ENGIE NA, and Duke Energy joined Bob on the panel. The Chairman, President & CEO of Entergy Texas moderated the discussion. Here is the abstract for this panel. Is the decarbonization imperative at odds with the need for stable…
- 7 Nov 2023
Alternative Energy Blog: Going Boldly Into a Green Hydrogen Future

Jim Cahill

Of all the new sustainable technologies emerging in the energy marketplace, one of the most exciting is green hydrogen. In an era of increasing focus on sustainability, green hydrogen has the potential to provide clean power for manufacturing, transportation, and more, and its only emission is water. But while the possibilities for use are limitless, the value chain for green hydrogen manufacturing is incredibly complex…
- 26 Oct 2023
Alternative Energy Blog: Increasing Demands by Solar Plants for Regulatory Compliance, Efficiency and Productivity Are Met and Exceeded by PACSystems™︎ Control Solutions

Jim Cahill

Dealing with outdated legacy systems is a challenge for nearly all industrial companies. In the fast-paced solar energy space, shifting market demands, regulatory requirements and increasing competition drive the need for modern capabilities to meet these new challenges. However, upgrading and replacing key technologies can be time consuming and cost prohibitive. This was the challenge that Nor-Cal Controls, a leading…
- 28 Sep 2023
Alternative Energy Blog: Beating the Drum for Improved Dynamic Performance, Resiliency and Stability

Jim Cahill

When was the last time you thought about your drum level control strategy? If it’s been a while, here are a few reasons why you might want to elevate this on your priority list. The energy landscape has changed as power producers continue their journey toward net-zero. Renewable sources of energy are playing a more prominent role in megawatt generation and this, in turn has implications for conventional power generating…
- 12 Sep 2023
Alternative Energy Blog: Advanced Process Control for Combined-Cycle Power Plants

Jim Cahill

Ranjit Rao , Jon Gillam , and Jim Nyenhuis presented Maximize your Combined Cycle Plant’s Performance with 5 Advanced Applications that Provide the Quickest ROI at the 2023 Ovation Users Group Conference. They opened by sharing some statistics about the challenges with global electrification. Advance control enables greater power plant flexibility to help address some of these challenges. Jim noted a paradox that…
- 17 Aug 2023
Alternative Energy Blog: Steam Turbine Electro-Hydraulic Control

Jim Cahill

Emerson’s Mark Stratton and Tori Winter presented Steam Turbine Electro-Hydraulic Control (EHC) Systems at the 2023 Ovation Users Group Conference. They opened by sharing a description of a steam turbine EHC system. Fluid power components and electronic controls operate the primary steam valves on a steam turbine and includes utility, extraction, and auxiliary turbines. The EHC components consist of a hydraulic power…
- 8 Aug 2023
Alternative Energy Blog: Optimizing Pump Performance with Measurements and Analytics

Jim Cahill

Emerson’s Melanie Novacek presented Ovation Advanced Process Control Pump Performance Algorithm at the 2023 Ovation Users Group Conference. Melanie opened by highlighting the APC Toolkit Pump Performance Algorithm in Ovation 3.8 systems and later. APC Toolkit pump performance algorithm calculates the following for centrifugal pumps based on the ASME Power Test Codes: Efficiency Head – suction, discharge, and total…
- 2 Aug 2023
Alternative Energy Blog: Power & Water Cybersecurity Tips & Tricks

Jim Cahill

Thomas Kizer and Robert Conte presented Power and Water Cybersecurity Suite: Tips & Tricks for Advanced Users at the 2023 Ovation Users Group Conference. The Power and Water Cybersecurity Suite (PWCS) modules collect thousands of data points every minute and enable users to customize how data is displayed to allow for faster reactions to a security incident and prepare the data to be used for compliance properly. Receiving…
- 28 Jul 2023
Alternative Energy Blog: Better Grid Reliability Starts with Analytics

Jim Cahill

As electrical grids get more complex, so too does the task of keeping them online. Grid operators have long had reliability programs, as they are essential to safe operation, but the most effective plants are updating those programs with modern technologies as they are forced to do more with less in the face of changing global market dynamics. At the 2023 Ovation Users’ Group conference , Emerson’s Brian Overton shared…
- 26 Jul 2023
Alternative Energy Blog: Successfully Bring Renewable Assets Into the Fold

Jim Cahill

One of the hottest topics of conversation at the 2023 Ovation Users’ Group conference has been renewables, and much of that conversation has been around the struggle to bring a wide array of disparate renewable assets together into a unified system of control, monitoring, and analytics. Modern power generators need to bring a wide variety of assets together. Finding a simple solution to manage them all from one place…
- 25 Jul 2023
Alternative Energy Blog: Ovation Users’ Group Power Industry Forum Tackles Modern Challenges

Jim Cahill

The power industry session at the 2023 Ovation Users’ Group conference in Pittsburgh took a closer look into the state of the industry, exploring both what is happening broadly in power generation, as well as the impact of the rise of renewables on the way plants and organizations operate. The first session, moderated by Jim Rarey from American Electric Power, focused on the power industry in general. Jim was joined…
- 25 Jul 2023
Alternative Energy Blog: Modernizing and Simplifying Water Handling for Power Generator

Jim Cahill

A power producer shared the story of their successful project to upgrade their generation capacity and modernize their control system and improve communications and control with the wastewater treatment plant supplying water for steam generation. The upgrades included wet compression and duct burners to decrease NOx and CO2 emissions. The upgrade replaced a older DCS with an Ovation system on their steam turbine control…
- 25 Jul 2023
Alternative Energy Blog: Ovation Users’ Group 2023 Opens with a Look Into the Future

Jim Cahill

After three long years, the Ovation Users’ Group is back in person in Pittsburgh in 2023. Bob Yeager opened the conference with an expansive vision for the many ways Emerson will work together with its users to meet a changing future. Change is a central theme in power generation today, so it is no surprise that it is also a central theme for #OvationUG. Bob explained that true change cannot happen without reinvention…
- 24 Jul 2023
Alternative Energy Blog: Addressing Changing Grids with Technology Innovations

Jim Cahill

Rick Kephart presented Ovation Technology and Innovation for the 2020s and Beyond at the 2023 Ovation Users Group conference. Rick opened by discussing the Ovation hyper-converged infrastructure, which simplifies virtual systems. The traditional server and storage silos are collapsed into a simpler, more efficient hyper-converged layer. This infrastructure eliminates dedicated storage devices, expands server options…
- 24 Jul 2023
Alternative Energy Blog: Growing Complexity in Power Grids

Jim Cahill

The Ovation Users Group Conference kicked off today in Pittsburgh, PA. Emerson’s Jaime Foose and Morgan Lewis presented, When Thermals and Renewables Collide: Meeting the Challenges of an Evolving Power Market. Morgan opened by noting how over the next decade and beyond, the shift to a more diversified energy portfolio is expected to materially accelerate. For energy companies, increased scrutiny from investors, regulators…
- 24 Jul 2023
Alternative Energy Blog: Optimizing Renewable Energy Asset Operations

Jim Cahill

As our energy grids continue to add more renewable sources, the complexity of managing these grids grows greater. In this 10:43 YouTube video, Ovation Green Renewable Asset Management and SCADA Software Technology Demonstration , Emerson’s Brett Benson demonstrates how the built-for-purpose Ovation Green asset management and SCADA software provides a unified view of renewable assets from a single pane of glass, helping…
- 23 May 2023
Alternative Energy Blog: Duke Energy Addresses Attemperator Issues

Jim Cahill

Duke Energy’s Heat Recovery Steam Generator Engineer Eugene Eagle and Emerson’s Director of Steam Conditioning Group Justin Goodwin recently published an article in the February 2022 edition of Power Engineering. The article is titled How Duke Energy Addresses Attemperator Issues, and it describes the deployment of a new steam atomization attemperator design that allowed Duke to reliably and safely run their combined…
- 13 Apr 2023
Alternative Energy Blog: Improving Water Cycle Energy Reliability

Jim Cahill

Water utilities are challenged to reliably produce and distribute safe, drinkable water to the communities they serve. It’s an energy-intensive process to accomplish this. In a North America Clean Energy article, How the Shift to Distributed Energy Resources Impacts the Water-Power-Carbon Nexus , Emerson’s Jason Blackburn shares how: …two major challenges—water scarcity and water quality—are impacting access to clean…
- 20 Oct 2022
Alternative Energy Blog: Extending the Digital Twin for More Sustainable Power Generation

Jim Cahill

Anyone paying attention to power—and probably even those who aren’t—are well aware that the way electricity is generated and delivered is rapidly changing. While the traditional combined cycle power facilities on the generation side we have come to depend on will be with us for a long time, new sustainable sources of renewable and distributed energy such as wind, solar, battery and green hydrogen are changing the grid…
- 19 Oct 2022
Alternative Energy Blog: Ovation Users’ Conference: Addressing the Needs of Tomorrow’s Markets Today

Jim Cahill

Day two of the Ovation Users’ Group conference opened with Jaime Foose , vice president of global sales and marketing for Emerson’s power and water solutions business, sharing how Emerson is addressing the needs of tomorrow’s markets today. Jaime emphasized that everyone is being challenged to make bold changes during these transitional times. We are doing just that by enabling versatile software and subscription models…
- 5 Oct 2022
Alternative Energy Blog: Ovation Users’ Conference: Reimagining a More Sustainable Tomorrow

Jim Cahill

Mark Bulanda , executive president of Emerson’s Automation Solutions business and the keynote speaker for this year’s Ovation Users’ Group opened the conference with a topic that resonated across all speakers: how automation software is helping companies accomplish their commitments to improved performance and, by association, sustainability. Emerson will achieve net zero status by 2045 Mark started by sharing Emerson…
- 3 Oct 2022
Alternative Energy Blog: Retrofitting Wind Turbine Control for Improved Performance

Jim Cahill

The use of wind turbines in the global energy mix continues to grow. According to the International Energy Agency : In 2021 wind electricity generation increased by a record 273 TWh (up 17%). This was 55% higher growth than that achieved in 2020 and was the highest among all renewable power technologies. Such rapid development was possible thanks to an unprecedented increase in wind capacity additions, which reached…
- 26 Sep 2022
Alternative Energy Blog: Driving Combined Cycle Efficiency Gains

Jim Cahill

Combined cycle electrical power generation facilities play an essential role in providing baseload power to the grid. The principle of operation : …is that after completing its cycle in the first engine, the working fluid (the exhaust) is still hot enough that a second subsequent heat engine can extract energy from the heat in the exhaust. Usually, the heat passes through a heat exchanger so that the two engines can…
- 18 Jul 2022
Alternative Energy Blog: Extending Wind Turbine Useful Lives

Jim Cahill

Given the ever-growing presence of wind turbines in the global energy supply mix, what happens to them as they age? In a LinkedIn article, Retrofit: A Second Life for Wind Turbines , Emerson’s Power & Water Solutions business president, Bob Yeager , describes the essential role retrofits play in enhancing wind turbine performance. Bob opens by noting that not only are new developments significant: …but also with an…
- 14 Jul 2022