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Alternative Energy Blog
214
posts
Give Legacy Wind Turbines a New Life with a Control System Retrofit
12 days ago
Power Blog
87
posts
Renewables Growing Faster than Expected
over 8 years ago
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Give Legacy Wind Turbines a New Life with a Control System Retrofit
Jim Cahill
As more and more people and companies around the globe seek out renewable energy solutions , wind turbines have become an increasingly popular investment for energy producers . However, many of the assets these producers acquire are decades old, making them hard to monitor and even harder to control optimally. In his recent article in North American Clean Energy , Emerson’s Thomas Andersen shared that updating control…
2 May 2024
Advanced Automation is the Key to Better Grid Management
Jim Cahill
Many modern power generation facilities are dealing with a two-pronged problem. On one hand, their assets are often decades old, and as a result, need a lot of attention to run at peak performance. However, the very people who have the deep industry expertise to keep those legacy assets running are retiring in droves, and the new people coming in to take their place rarely stay long enough to gain the necessary skills…
25 Apr 2024
What can you expect during a modern turbine control retrofit project?
Jim Cahill
Whether it is onshore, offshore or newer airborne technology, wind power is playing a key role in the energy transition. With this continued growth in the wind power market, organizations are looking closely at how they can ensure their wind turbines—some of which may be decades old and outfitted with outdated technologies–can operate at peak efficiency. For numerous reasons—cost, delays due to supply chain shortages…
24 Apr 2024
Modern Power Generation Requires Modern Solutions
Jim Cahill
Utilities around the globe are reacting to a public call to address climate change. The future of generation will call for new technologies that reduce emissions and provide more sustainable power. However, as James Fraser points out in his recent article in enerG magazine , power companies have avoided reacting to this change by a complete rip and replace of technologies. Utilities still need to provide reliable power…
23 Apr 2024
Don’t Replace—Retrofit!
Jim Cahill
Much of our attention on the rise of renewable energy has been focused on the United States and Europe, but the reality is that a trend toward increasing renewable electricity generation is happening around the globe. Nowhere is that more obvious than in India, where the government has set ambitious goals to reach net zero emissions by 2070 and meet 50% of its electricity requirements from renewable energy sources by…
18 Apr 2024
What does Emerson do for Wind and Other Renewables?
Jim Cahill
A recent U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) report anticipates strong growth in wind energy deployments. I’m enthusiastic about the continued growth of renewables in general, and wind energy, in particular. Emerson has been supporting major utilities in the power sector for over 100 years. As power producers increasingly move into the renewable space, we are moving with them in nearly every space –hydropower, solar, battery…
15 Apr 2024
Ask the Expert: Your burning questions about frequency and inertia for renewables and Inverter-Based Resources
Jim Cahill
Meeting local and national CO 2 emission goals and responding to social pressures related to global warming are primary factors driving decarbonization efforts in the energy industry across the world. At the same time, electricity demand is growing across the board. Together, decarbonization and increasing demand are creating a challenging environment for organizations tasked with ensuring grid resiliency. Efficient…
28 Feb 2024
Redefining AI: Turning Analytic Insights into Actionable Intelligence
Jim Cahill
Analytics using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) presents a massive opportunity, but also confusion. Where to start? How to start? What models to apply where? What types of problems can analytics solve? Advanced analytics can transition power producers from a reactive operations and maintenance approach to a predictive or prognostic strategy. This actionable intelligence—built directly into the…
14 Feb 2024
Weighing Your Wind Turbine Options: Retrofit, Replace or Repair?
Jim Cahill
I’m often asked about how much impact wind turbine control retrofits can have on overall operations, and how they stack up against replacement or repair. It’s simple: they can be a very cost-effective way to positively affect the performance and reliability of a single wind turbine, multiple turbines within a wind farm and fleets of multiple wind farms. Pros and cons at a glance As wind turbines age and become less…
30 Jan 2024
With investment flowing into hydro plants, it’s time to think about the benefits of modernizing controls
Jim Cahill
Funding is flowing into U.S. hydropower facilities: Recently, the U.S. Department of Energy announced that through the Hydroelectric Production Incentive, 66 hydro facilities would receive $38 million in incentive payments for electricity generated and sold. This funding, authorized by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, is part of a $750 million commitment to incentivize investment and capital improvements in this source…
5 Dec 2023
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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