Conference Program

Best Practices Table Top Updates

Combustible Dust Collection System Effectiveness

Conveyors Fundamentals of Moving Coal from Tail Pulley to Head Pulley - Coal On to Coal Off

This meeting is open to all members of EPCE. Please call Jill Dean to upgrade your registration. 713-343-1880.

ELECTRIC POWER is proud to announce Mr. William F. Hederman, JR. - Deputy Director for Systems Integration and Senior Adviser to the Secretary of Energy as our opening Keynote presenter for the 17th Annual Conference.

"Insights from the First Quadrennial Energy Review."
The Department of Energy has announced the development of a Quadrennial Energy Review (QER). Lead by the office of the Secretary of Energy the DOE will hold a series of meetings to discuss and receive comments on issues related to the development of a comprehensive strategy for the infrastructure needed to transport, transmit and deliver energy to consumers. Other federal agencies will also join these meetings.
The Nation’s current infrastructure is increasingly challenged by transformations in energy supply, markets, and patterns of end use; issues of ageing and capacity; impacts of climate change; and cyber and physical threats. The QER will serve as a roadmap to help address these challenges.
Our Keynote presentation from Mr. William Hederman, Jr. Senior Adviser to the Secretary, U. S. Department of Energy, Deputy Director, Energy Systems Integration, Energy Policy and Systems Analysis (EPSA) will discuss the origins, preliminary findings and the analytical approach to gathering the information for this report.

This session will explore the rebalancing of the three primary aspects of electric delivery; cost, reliability and environmental impact. The EPA, through the Clean Power Plan, is boldly redefining the threshold of environmental impact. This transformed definition leads to a greater emphasis on an environmentally focused system dispatch to the potential detriment of low cost power production and maintaining reliable electric delivery.

This session will explore the rebalancing of the three primary aspects of electric delivery; cost, reliability and environmental impact. The EPA, through the Clean Power Plan, is boldly redefining the threshold of environmental impact. This transformed definition leads to a greater emphasis on an environmentally focused system dispatch to the potential detriment of low cost power production and maintaining reliable electric delivery.

This session will review facility reliability, predicting unit capacity and share best practices in performance and maintenance with temporary power as well as the use of remote digital video inspection technology.

Technology advancements from new plants has been increasingly integrated into existing assets. This session highlights such improvements on current power plants.

With the changing technology and the aging infrastructure Power Utilities are required to evaluate the threat of a plant due to: aging plant assets and their expected life, cascading events and the potential for a High-Altitude Electromagnetic Pulse (HEMP). These types of risks can all be mitigated via non-destructive examinations of components, probability and mitigation of risks, and methods to block a HEMP attack. Learn how to build resiliency in your power plant to mitigate risk from high impact, low probability hazards, as well as preparing all parties for the unexpected.

This session will present successful CHP facilities, including the conceptual development and results of project operation.

This session will focus on several renewable technologies including solar, wind and biomass. Recent advances in wind and waste processing for distributed generation will be covered.

This course looks at the historical lessons learned from major incidents in the NYC. This session will ultimately provide insight into what the stakeholders from the first response community want to know when they arrive on scene. The ability to communicate the hazards will enable them to develop the response tactics necessary to mitigate the impact of your incident and ensure that everyone goes home safe. The session will also cover the personnel and logistical considerations that will ensure a positive outcome to your incident. Remember you can’t do it alone!

ELECTRIC POWER’s Veterans in Power (VIP) initiative will recognize the employers who have successfully connected, employed, and engaged veterans to become long-term employees in the industry. Employers have been successful through internal corporate programs as well as many public-private partnerships with other organizations, community colleges and universities. Veterans in Power also seeks to offer a forum for veterans to meet, engage in mentoring, and offer career development support.

As part of the Veterans in Power initiative, ELECTRIC POWER will announce the recipients of the Faraday Awards at the annual conference in April 2015. The Faraday Awards will recognize and honor the employers, programs and partnerships that have successfully focused on elevating the careers of American veterans in the energy industry. Organizations are invited to share stories of success in hiring, training and retaining veterans through an online application. A distinguished review panel assembled by PReP Intl (Prequalified Ready Employees for Power International) and ELECTRIC POWER will judge applicants’ programs from across the country to highlight the “best of the best” and recognize and celebrate their efforts at the 2015 ELECTRIC POWER conference in Chicago.

Make sure to join us on the exhibit hall floor Tuesday, April 21 for the Veterans in Power & Faraday Award presentation!

Outage management, part of plant maintenance, is of key importance in today’s world of tightened pressure in energy Markets. Building a good program, sustaining it, and learning from each experience is vital. It is a journey you are never finished with.

This session will review current status of the ELG rule and delve into cost effective planning and complexity of compliance with other regulations like MATS, CCR and 316b.

As renewable energy technologies gain increasing market share in the US how can advancements ensure economic and reliable integration? This session will explore advancements in renewable energy technologies, including existing conventional technology and new energy market structures to support greater integration of the resources.

This session will include various applications of CHP to systems such as desalination and district heating. Presentations will also cover market and industry trends.

The use of coal as a base load fuel has been under attack for several years. This session will cover topics that show ways to win the war on coal by improvements in efficiency and performance.

Learn about new enhancements with combustion turbines/combined cycle machines. See what performance upgrades do for reliability, flexibility & improved machine performance.

This session touches on current challenges and issues the electric power workforce faces today, such as turnover in the workforce, impact of stress impeding safety and HR’s role in talent management.

This course will look at the collaborative efforts that should be employed by the utilities and the members of the law enforcement community. It will serve to dispel some of the myths and focus on what is plausible in terms of keeping the infrastructure safe through training, drill facility design and security initiatives.

This session will explore options and real world solutions for clean water act section 316(b) compliance for existing generating plant cooling water intakes and discharges.

Flexibility, environmental compliance and fuel costs are all major considerations to new gas turbine and combined cycle power plants. This session will highlight new technology features.

One of the building blocks of the proposed Clean Power Plan is a 6% heat rate improvement for coal-fired power plants. This session will explore potential efficiency improvements and the challenges in achieving this aggressive target.

This session will focus on improving boiler performance and longevity. The first paper will look at the effects of load cycling on boiler pressure parts. The second paper will look at methods to extend tube life in severe operating conditions. The following paper will address boiler improved MATS compliance by reducing boiler air in-leakage. The final paper will address at improving heat rate improvement using sootblower optimization.

This session will examine several key issues that developers must contend with in order to successfully take a CHP project from concept to commissioning. Topics covered will range from regulatory considerations and related permitting to barriers to market entry and project execution, among others.

The fact is that something will go wrong, sometime. It is often how you react that makes the difference. Emergencies happen…those who are prepared deal with it better and those who are not often contribute to the problem. This session is intended to familiarize all attendees with significant fire risks within a coal-fired power plant and provide valuable information how to safely mitigate the risks.

Join us for a panel discussion around the critical utility workforce needs relevant for both today’s and tomorrow’s utility professionals.

Hear from electric power professionals working to develop the next generation of utility professionals. This panel will feature professionals from different electric power companies with a wide range of knowledge and expertise on developing the electric power professional of tomorrow.


With new regulations, the ever increasing rate of business change based on new technologies, and an aging workforce the utility industry is facing a workforce transformation.


Hear from panelists on:

• Current critical employment needs
  
• Initiatives currently implemented to strengthen today’s professional
  
• Efforts to address the future employment needs

The new knowledge, skills and abilities (KSAs) required are far different from those of even a decade ago. The electric power industry understands it’s an important time to strengthen critical roles needed for the utility workforce. Each panelist will describe their vision around:

• Critical jobs/roles needed - succession planning
  
• Growing the number of young professionals
  
• Supporting career pathways for career advancement
  
  The format is designed to facilitate a discussion with panelists from the electric power industry as well as educators supporting the next generation of electric power professionals. Attendees are encouraged to ask questions, share ideas and thoughts.
  
  
  We encourage all attendees to attend, it is open to all registered attendees.

The electric power industry is in the midst of a major transformation for a variety of reasons. These reasons include lower to zero demand growth from energy efficiency measures and organic changes in the U.S. economy, shifts in the relative cost of various fuels to generate electricity with the rise of lower cost shale natural gas, new environmental requirements such as EPA’s proposed Clean Power Plan, and disruptive technologies such as distributed generation and storage. These forces are causing some to call for fundamental changes in power sector business models and associated regulatory reforms at the federal and state levels.

Continuing its tradition of attracting industry thought-leaders, ELECTRIC POWER has invited several leading industry executives to join the annual Executive Leadership Round Table on the morning of April 22. The session will be moderated by John Shelk, President and CEO of the Electric Power Supply Association. This panel of power sector leaders will share with the audience what keeps them up at night, what they think the next obstacles will be, and how they are leading their companies to meet these many challenges.

This session will focus on FGD strategies due to regulations, minimizing discharge, and optimizing operation.

A power plant is a complex set of systems which contributes to the overall operation of the plant. This session explores innovations for improvements to existing process challenges.

Water may be the next major focus of the EPA but Gas Turbine plants are still working out how to meet the Cross State Air Regulation Rules. This session will cover some retrofits for mature plants as well as technologies for simple and combined cycle plants.

Human error is a leading cause of accidents in a power plant. This panel will focus on what utilities are doing to address and deal with situations that arise.

Energy markets constantly strive to efficiently respond to changes in technology and new environmental regulations. In this session we will review some of the current challenges and opportunities facing the market.

Rarely does a utility provide training to the members of the first response community. Usually the only time training is offered is when it is followed by suffering. A large scale incident tends to flush these issues out. Unfortunately, the problem is compounded by appointing personnel to design a training program without considering stakeholder needs. These programs are usually designed to give an engineering overview of how the facility works. When this program is rolled out to first responders it is met with “lemon face”. This is the painful look from the fire department when an engineer is explaining the phase angle concept rather than the basic hazards and response tactics necessary to keep them safe. Learn how to avoid lemon face by attending this session from key personnel who have designed training and drills for the full gamut of the first response community.

Hear from 4 panelists aged 28-32 years old who have earned success at Sargent + Lundy. Gain insight and interact with these emerging leaders as they describe their career path highlights thus far and share lessons that helped spur their rapid success.
Speakers:

• Caleb Kadera, Mechanical Project Engineer
  
• Krunal Patel, Structural Project Engineer
  
• Nicole Lessard, Electrical Project Engineer
  
• Michelle Hack, Project Manager

North American Power Industry Outlook – 30 minutes

The North American Power Industry continues moving into unprecedented territory. Changing natural gas prices, pending environmental legislation, aging infrastructure, and an increasing number of plant retirements are pulling the industry in several new directions. Join Industrial Info for our Power Industry Outlook to help make sense of these trends and discover how they will affect Power Industry spending over the next 12 to 24 months.


Presented by Brock Ramey, Power Specialist

April 21: 12:45 PM (All Attendees)

April 22: 12:45 PM (All Attendees)



2015 U.S. Industrial Market Outlook – 30 minutes

Immediately following our Power Industry Outlook, Industrial Info provides a broader view of North American industrial markets with our "Top-Line" spending forecast, covering 12 industrial sectors, including Electric Power Generation. Gain insight into the big picture of how the drivers and constraints for all industrial sectors will affect plant spending in the U.S. and Canada. Industrial Info will discuss its spending indicators, including Construction Starts, Project Fallout, Project Restarts (previously canceled or on-hold projects coming back to life) and our Project Spending Index.


Presented by Michael Bergen, Executive Vice President

April 21: 2:00 PM (All Attendees)

April 22: 2:00 PM (All Attendees)



Knowledge-building sessions for beginning & advanced current users – 30 minutes

Already a user of Industrial Info’s online database tools? In these sessions, we provide tips, techniques and best practices to get the most out of PECWeb, Power Tracker and other resources. Learn how to streamline and optimize your queries to obtain the data you want, as well as how to use features such as Saved Searches and Email Alerts to help customize our tools to fit your needs. We also will touch on new features, products and enhancements that will help you become more successful in your sales and marketing activities!


Separate sessions are provided for beginning and advanced PECWeb users.


Presented by Christine Garcia, Vice President of Support Services

Chris Keister, Vice President of Electronic Products

April 21: 2:45 PM (Advanced Users *)

April 22: 2:45 PM (Basic Users **)


* = This session is for current users with a relatively strong understanding of PECWeb.

** = This session provides beginning users an understanding of the basics of PECWeb.these trends and discover how they will affect Power Industry spending over the next 12 to 24 months.


Presented by Brock Ramey, Power Specialist

April 21: 12:30 PM (All Attendees)

April 22: 12:30 PM (All Attendees)



2015 U.S. Industrial Market Outlook – 30 minutes

Immediately following our Power Industry Outlook, Industrial Info provides a broader view of North American industrial markets with our "Top-Line" spending forecast, covering 12 industrial sectors, including Electric Power Generation. Gain insight into the big picture of how the drivers and constraints for all industrial sectors will affect plant spending in the U.S. and Canada. Industrial Info will discuss its spending indicators, including Construction Starts, Project Fallout, Project Restarts (previously canceled or on-hold projects coming back to life) and our Project Spending Index.


Presented by Michael Bergen, Executive Vice President

April 21: 1:15 PM (All Attendees)

April 22: 1:15 PM (All Attendees)



Knowledge-building sessions for beginning & advanced current users – 30 minutes

Already a user of Industrial Info’s online database tools? In these sessions, we provide tips, techniques and best practices to get the most out of PECWeb, Power Tracker and other resources. Learn how to streamline and optimize your queries to obtain the data you want, as well as how to use features such as Saved Searches and Email Alerts to help customize our tools to fit your needs. We also will touch on new features, products and enhancements that will help you become more successful in your sales and marketing activities!


Separate sessions are provided for beginning and advanced PECWeb users.


Presented by Christine Garcia, Vice President of Support Services

Chris Keister, Vice President of Electronic Products

April 21: 2:15 PM (Advanced Users *)

April 22: 2:15 PM (Basic Users **)


* = This session is for current users with a relatively strong understanding of PECWeb.

** = This session provides beginning users an understanding of the basics of PECWeb.

This session presents approaches for handling and disposing of fly ash, bottom ash, and FGD byproducts in the context of EPA’s proposed coal combustion residuals (CCR) rule. CCR compliance strategies and costs will be discussed and specific case studies and technologies for CCR management will be highlighted.

This session will explore how plant data analytics is being utilized for plant efficiency, asset optimization and dispatch of generation assets.

This session will host several presentations ranging from current energy storage applications all the way to near future applications. Discussions on using storage to be more competitive peaker, business model for storage facility, creating an integrated resource plan.

The topic of Asset Optimization means many things to many different people. This session invites recognized industry leaders to provide a brief discussion of their respective technology and expertise followed by a panel discussion on the benefits, challenges, and issues of practical application.

Cyber Security is a hot topic in today’s internet based environment. Government regulations and internal utility management are driving the new cyber security efforts to protect the critical electric power infrastructure from cyber-attacks. This session will address some of the industry’s best practices. Cyber-attacks have become more prevalent than ever before and the need to establish a robust cyber security initiative in the utility market is more crucial than ever before.

Fire investigations, in residential and commercial buildings, require documentation of the electrical systems. Fire investigators routinely rely on information obtained from the power company as part of this documentation process. This presentation will discuss the some of the requirements in NFPA 921 and 1033, the type of information fire investigators are likely to request, and how providing this information may be beneficial to the power company.

Our society relies on the steady, reliable, and safe availability of electricity and natural gas to power our homes and businesses. However as our infrastructure ages we are observing an increasing number of fire and explosion events as a result of infrastructure failures. A recent study indicated that in Washington, DC alone a survey found nearly 6,000 methane leaks in the 1,500 miles of roadway. Enough gas was observed to be leaking to power 7 homes on a daily basis and 12 sampling locations had concentrations that were flammable. This and other data indicates that the rate of infrastructure failure may be increasing and that incident frequency may increase as well. The cities with the largest portion of aging infrastructure are also those with the some of the highest populations, namely Boston, New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia. These cities also have some of the largest quantities of “unaccounted” for gas. In addition while the quantity of cast iron piping is slowly decreasing as it is replaced by utilities, PHMSA states that incidents involving the cast iron piping account for more than 11% of incidents resulting in injuries or deaths.

In this presentation we discuss a summary of prior incidents including recent events in California, New York, Ohio, Arizona, and Indiana as well as elsewhere. We discuss the potential to use fire and explosion modeling tools to evaluate potential high risk areas and the consequences that could occur as a result of a leak and subsequent ignition. By examining pipe sizing, pressure, material, and age an analysis can be done to establish areas that require additional focus and computational fluid dynamics modeling (CFD) can be used to evaluate the potential consequences of an incident on the community. By systematically indexing the risk and consequences corrective actions can be taken to efficiently implemented changes to the system. In addition the use of the tools can be highly effective in evaluating post incident reconstructions as well as designing potential protection systems.

Co-located with ELECTRIC POWER, the Women in POWER Panel Discussion is designed to be an interactive discussion of ideas and concerns relevant to women professionals in the electric power industry. The format is organized around a group of key issues with a panel of high-level women professionals in the power industry who will help facilitate discussion among the attendees. The event’s emphasis will be on encouraging the attendees to share concerns, career strategies, professional accomplishments, and lessons learned. In addition, there will be discussions about how to foster networking among women power professionals, develop mentoring relationships for both technical expertise and career development, and promote future careers in the electric power industry for young female students through educational outreach programs to middle schools and high schools. Get ready to feel the positive energy, hear success stories, gather new industry contacts and leverage connections in the Power Industry! Women in POWER will host a reception at the upcoming ELECTRIC POWER Conference and is open to all registered attendees.

Moderator/Chair:
Colleen Campbell, Director, Business Development, URS Corporation

Panelists:
Tracy Ortiz, Fuels Superintendent, Tuscon Electric


Teresa Mogensen, VP Transmission, XCEL Energy


Sharon Pfeuffer, Director of Engineering, Conners Creek Power Plant, DTE Energy


Kathleen O'Leary, President, NiSource Corporation


Karen Peery, Vice President, IT, Exelon Generation LLC

Kim D. Flowers, VA - Technical Services, Southern Company

This session reviews several innovative approaches to PM, Hg, Acid gas control using DSI & baghouses.

A power plant is a complex set of systems which contribute to the overall operation of the plant. This session explores innovations for improvements to existing process challenges.

With PM, PdM, RCM, and all the others, sometimes it feels like maintenance is managed by acronym. Ultimately, what the plants want is an effective maintenance program that works for their facility, given their resources, budget constraints and corporate risk profile. In this session you will hear what other sites are implementing and how it is working for them, and take away real world experiences.

This session will review the EPA’s Clean Power Plan and speculate on the impacts it will have on the electric generating industry. Facts on CO2 emissions and case histories will be presented.

The Clean Power Plan is a proposed regulation to reduce CO2 emissions by 30 percent from electric generating plants by 2030. And, there are very aggressive interim targets for CO2 reductions beginning in 2020. Each state faces different CO2 targets. And, states must develop implementation plans by 2016 or 2017 if in conjunction with other states. The EPA has proposed four “building blocks” to meet the CO2 reductions. These “building blocks” are improved power plant efficiency of 6 percent, use of natural gas combined cycle plants in lieu of coal plants, increased use of renewable and nuclear generation, and increases in demand-side efficiency.

This presentation focuses on the challenges associated with implementing and maintaining adequate fire protection on aging generation assets. Of particular interest will be: Incorporating emerging fire protection technologies into existing steam and combustion turbines and their associated support systems; Establishing a team approach to inspection, testing and maintenance; And applying NFPA 850, Factory Mutual Data Sheets 7-101 and 7-79 criteria to achieve Highly Protected Risk Status.

This session will focus on the optimization reduction technology for NOx reduction. Topics will include improvements to catalyst design, ammonia distribution and catalyst cleaning.

Whether it is back-up batteries in our substations or batteries used for peak load shaving we must consider how we will manage a bad day before it arrives. This course will provide participants with the data obtained from field testing in terms of effective suppression agents, spacial separation and best practices for design. Testing was done on the following battery types:

• Lead Acid
  
• Lithium Ion
  
• Sodium Sulfur
  
• Sodium Nickel Chloride
  
• Vanadiium Redox