COMPETITIVE POWER COLLEGE CURRICULUM
Monday, December 7, 2009
   
4-Hour course registration fees include workshop materials,  certificate of completion, coffee break and CPC Attendee Reception


CPC 501    Why Good Projects Don’t Get Built

Date:        Monday, December 7, 2009    Time:    8:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Room:        N101                Cost:    $400.00

Instructors
John D’Alessandro, VP, Public Affairs, Zone 5; James B. Lynn, President & CEO, Meridian Ventures ; John T. McManus, Partner, Harris Beach PLLC ; Brian P. Osterhout, Director of Business Development, MJ Engineering

Who Should Attend
All education levels: project developers, project managers, business development managers, communicators.

Course Overview and Objective
The history of our industry clearly shows that the implementation of a proactive and integrated outreach plan increases the probability of project success, reduces development costs and shortens regulatory approval times. This presentation will examine recurring communications and siting mistakes, highlight outreach programs that worked and provide guidance on how to meet the stakeholder demands of the 21st century development environment.

Course Highlights

• Examine representative projects and their outreach efforts
• Analyze what strategies and approaches worked and what didn’t. Determine why
• Demonstrate the need for all project disciplines to interact
• Provide a framework for a successful project development approach

CPC 502    Temperature Measurement and Data Acquisition in Power Plants

Date:        Monday, December 7, 2009    Time:    8:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Room:        N102                Cost:    $400.00

Instructor
Ravi Jethra, Industry Manager – Power & Energy, Endress+Hauser

Who Should Attend
High School Diploma, Associate or Bachelors degree in engineering or with some practical background and experience.  Plant Technicians, Maintenance Engineers and I&E engineers and Controls Engineer, Safety Engineers

Course Overview and Objective
Temperature is one of the most widely measured parameters in a power plant. Temperature is monitored and also used for control in some areas. The workshop covers some of the basics of Temperature measurement, and leads into some of the technical advances that impart higher a degree of safety and reliability to power plant operation. These advances are based on some of the latest and innovative technologies that are being implemented in process instrumentation. Data Acquisition is an important element as part of monitoring numerous parameters. The workshop would cover data acquisition technologies and applications as it relates to powerplants.

Irrespective of the type of power plant (coal-fired, Oil or gas based), temperature measurement remains high on the list for operational excellence throughout the plant. Implementation of some of the new technologies results in improved Safety and lower installation and maintenance costs. Incorrect measurement information due to temperature effects, non linearity or stability can result in major equipment getting damaged. Ensuring instruments that have minimal downtime from a maintenance standpoint, not just devices that have been evaluated to provide Safety Integrity Level service in Safety Instrumented Systems, is crucial for daily operations in a power plant.

Course Highlights

• Temperature Measurement : Overview of methods
• Discussion on Sensors, Transmitters
• Importance of Temperature Measurement
• Problems generally associated with Temperature measurement
• Areas critical for Temperature monitoring
• Usage of Temperature data
• Applications discussion involving installation  practices
• Trends in Temperature measurement
• Data Acquisition technologies and applications for powerplants

CPC 503    Key Considerations and Best Practices in EPC Contracting for Wind Farms (Developer’s Perspective)

Date:        Monday, December 7, 2009    Time:    1:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Room:        N101                Cost:    $400.00

Instructors
Richard E. Thompson II, Partner, Mercer Thompson LLP and Jason B. Yost, Partner, Mercer Thompson LLP

Who Should Attend
This presentation is ideal for utility and/or IPP business and/or legal personnel who are new to this subject and who will soon be involved in negotiating the development agreements for wind-farms. 

Course Overview and Objective
As regulatory developments continue to buttress the economics of wind generated power production, more utilities and IPPs are pursuing the development of off-shore and on-shore wind farms.  Against this backdrop, a handful of wind turbine OEMs have come to dominate the market, with their products in high demand.  While wind turbines appear to be fairly simple machines, anyone who might jump from that observation to a conclusion that purchasing wind turbines is a simple matter will quickly realize the error of their ways when the OEM’s sales contract arrives.  Complexities abound amid the hundreds of pages, most of which are designed to protect the OEM’s best interests. 
With signifcant dollars and risk involved, a first-time purchaser of wind turbines cannot afford to make mistakes. 

Similarly, contracting for the installation of wind turbines is no easy matter.  Many important issues must be addressed that are particular to wind farm construction, not to mention various issues that exist for any greenfield project.  None of these can be ignored, especially if the developer intends to seek project financing.  This presentation will explain the nuts and bolts of wind turbine procurement agreements and the installation/construction agreements pursuant to which the turbines are installed and balance of plant constructed.  We will walk through the key elements of these agreements, focusing on how to protect the developer’s interests at every step. 

Course Highlights
Wind Turbine Contracts

• Purchase price payment structures
• Special issues relating to shipment and delivery
• How and when do you test?  What if the wind doesn’t blow?
• Performance guarantees
• Warranty Issues

Installation/Construction Agreements

• Interconnection and communication facilities
• Sequencing of construction and completion goals
• Structuring of payments to the contractor
• How and when to measure “completion”
• Wind delay days and other unique force majeure issues
• The construction contractor’s role in commissioning, start-up and testing

• The Bigger Picture:  Strategies for inter-contract integration to support project financing

CPC 504    Turbine Inlet Cooling:  The Energy Solution to Increase Power Output, Lower Emissions, Decrease Carbon Footprint & Improve Heat Rate

Date:        Monday, December 7, 2009    Time:    1:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Room:        N102                Cost:    $400.00

Instructors
John E. Kraft, P.E., President, Caldwell Energy Co.

Who Should Attend
This course is targeted to management, engineers, environmental, operators and load planners to provide a clear understanding of the various inlet cooling technologies available to optimize and increase power output, lower emissions, and improve heat rate for their combustion turbine power plants.

Course Overview and Objective
This course is sponsored and developed with the Turbine Inlet Cooling Association (TICA).  This unbiased format will provide evaluation of all technologies.  Combustion turbine power augmentation techniques offer economical means to add useful capacity to both existing and new power generation equipment.  What is not known is how turbine inlet cooling also reduces emissions, lowers carbon footprint, and improves the heat rate of power plants.  Optimizing profitability, improving dispatch, and lowering emissions has gained increased importance to power plant owners, particularly in today’s competitive market.  Turbine Inlet Cooling (TIC) systems have been prove a viable method of achieving this task.  There are several technologies available for TIC systems, each having distinct advantages and economic benefits.
 
TIC technologies can be broken down into three main classifications:

• Refrigeration based systems:  packaged chillers, custom ammonia based large capacity plants, and various methods of applying thermal energy storage
• Evaporative based systems:  media swamp coolers and fogging technology
• Wet Compression Technology:  systematically injects water mass into a inlet air stream, prior to entering the compressor.  In addition to evaporative cooling, the heat of compression in the CT compressor evaporates the water, improving the efficiency of the compressor and significantly increasing the output of the combustion turbine.

This course will teach the evaluation of the different TIC technologies, the technical details of each system, the economic impacts to the bottom line, and the environmental impact resulting from the application.  Useful performance models will be reviewed as applied to case studies to form a basis for the application of TIC systems and these will be compared with real cases.  Participants will gain detailed knowledge of the methods for optimizing their generation capacity.

Course Highlights

• Inlet cooling thermodynamics and psychometrics
• Inlet cooling technologies
  • Evaporative Cooling and Fogging Technology
  • Wet Compression Technology
  • Chilling Systems
  • Thermal Energy Storage Technology
  • Hybrid Systems (evap/chill/wet compession)
• New Technology Developments
• System Components
• Combustion Turbine Effects
• Environmental emissions and carbon footprint impact
• Economic Evaluation
• Case Histories

CPC 505    Combustion Dynamics in Gas Turbine Power Plants

Date:        Monday, December 7, 2009    Time:    1:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Room:        N113                Cost:    $400.00

Instructor
Tim Lieuwen, Associate Professor, Georgia Institute of Technology

Who Should Attend
Technical, Bachelors, Masters

Course Overview and Objective
This one day course introduces students to gas turbine combustion, emissions, combustion operability issues and combustion dynamics.  It begins with an overview of gas turbine combustion systems, such as emissions issues, combustor layout, and operability.  It then focuses on combustion instabilities, and will describe case studies from several DLN combustors development efforts.  It then provides background on what causes dynamics and what parameters (e.g., fuel composition and temperature) influence it.  Next, it discusses strategies for treating dynamics problems by combustor tuning.  Finally, it discusses dynamics monitoring approaches, and various issues associated with using dynamics monitoring for machine protection and health monitoring.

Course Highlights

• Gas turbine combustion overview
     Gas Turbine emissions
     Combustion operability Issues
• Field experience with combustion dynamics
• Combustion instability mechanisms
• Instrumentation for dynamics monitoring
• Combustor protection and health monitoring strategies using dynamics data