POWER March 2020 - 36

GAS POWER
erate in testing or tuning modes when
required. This will allow the company to
participate in testing protocols that have
previously gone unperformed and will
allow NV Energy to ensure combustion
dynamics are optimized following repairs
and overhauls.
3. An effective critical event management program and strategy is an integrated, end-to-end
process that enables organizations to significantly speed up responses to critical events and
improve outcomes. Smart phones can play a key role in crisis management platforms. Courtesy:
IHI Power Services Corp.
cycling was hard on units, and in many
cases, was not really necessary.
Although the process successfully
complied with air permit requirements,
it often resulted in increased total emissions
due to time spent operating in
startup and shutdown modes, as well as
under less-efficient, low-load conditions.
For example, most of NV Energy's CTs
employ selective catalytic reduction and
oxidation catalyst in addition to low-NOx
burners. Most catalyst-based systems
aren't fully functional during startup, and
low-NOx
burners are similarly not optimized,
this results in higher emissions
per MWh than a unit typically produces
during normal full-load operation, when
systems perform at peak efficiency.
Furthermore, testing or tuning after
outages or following new equipment
installation was very constrained, due
to the inability to obtain a variance from
the DAQ. In fact, there had been times
when NV Energy was forced to decline
requests to perform Western Electricity
Coordinating Council and North American
Electric Reliability Corp. regulatory
testing because it was incompatible with
air permit emissions limits.
To solve the problem, NV Energy's
team of experts developed a case for
permitting a very limited set of circumstances
during which higher emissions
would be allowed. It drew on the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency's rule
addressing emissions during startup,
shutdown, and malfunction to provide
guidance for both numeric and non-numeric
emission limitations for periods of
non-normal operation outside of startup
and shutdown. NV Energy's Environmental
Services Manager Kim Williams said
the team met with the permitting agency
multiple times during the process to
36
explain its proposed new approach and
gain concurrence from the agency.
In the end, the team submitted carefully
crafted permit applications requesting
alternate operating scenarios for
limited periods during unplanned operating
events and for testing or tuning, that
is, planned operation outside of normal
limits for the purposes of data collection,
diagnostics, or operational adjustment.
The permit modification process
required scouring historical emissions
monitoring data for every CT and reviewing
scenarios to ensure no unintended
consequences would result. Training on
the new scenarios was also required.
" The operators themselves were indispensable
in the development of the
training, " Williams said.
Through January 2020, the team
successfully
permitted new alternate
operating scenarios at one generating
station, with four others pending and
more in the queue. As expected, the alternate
operating scenarios benefit not
only the plant, but also the environment,
through the avoidance of unnecessary
shutdown-startup cycles.
" Under the new alternate operating
scenarios, when the facility encounters
an unplanned operating event on any
combustion turbine, the plant operations
may resolve the issue promptly-within
the permitted duration and frequency limits-and
thereby eliminate the need for a
shutdown-startup cycle, " said Williams.
" Therefore, the total mass emissions
from the turbines may be reduced-and
the emissions per megawatt-hour would
most likely be reduced-when operated
under the conditions of the new alternate
operating scenario. "
Additionally, adoption of the new approach
gives NV Energy the ability to opwww.powermag.com
Safety
Excellence
In the safety category, CTOTF recognized
IHI Power Service Corp. for implementing
a new crisis management platform
throughout its fleet. The system-developed
in partnership with Everbridge Inc.,
a global software company that provides
enterprise applications to automate and
accelerate responses to critical events-
allows plant and corporate sites to notify
employees and senior leadership of
emergency situations at any level.
The crisis management protocol can be
triggered by a number of events including
a fatality, workplace violence incident, fire
with significant damage, major environmental
release, terrorist threat, natural
disaster, and more. A threshold event
can be activated using a standard control
room desktop computer or by utilizing the
Everbridge application (Figure 3).
There are also a number of ways for
employees to receive notifications when
a threshold event occurs, including via
email or text on work or personal cell
phones and computers. When employees
receive an incident notification, they
are asked to respond.
" This feature is very useful when senior
leadership members responsible for
certain facilities are not available, " explained
Mike Garrett, director of Health
and Safety for IHI Power Services Corp.
" This allows the rest of the senior leadership
team to coordinate available resources
based on the nature of the incident. "
The system streamlines communication
between plants and senior leadership,
allowing technicians to focus
on managing the situation rather than
answering calls from multiple people
looking for status updates. IHI Power
Services Corp. is also utilizing the platform
for corporate-wide emergency drills
and for facility-specific drills.
" Since implementation, we have had
seven threshold events that triggered the
crisis management response system utilizing
the Everbridge platform, " Garrett said.
" In all seven events, the incident command
was set-up and the senior leadership member
was able to coordinate with the facility
and provide resources, as needed. " ■
-Aaron Larson is POWER's
executive editor.
POWER | March 2020

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POWER March 2020

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