EPRI JOURNAL is published eight times each year (January/February, March, April/May, June, July/August, September, October/November, and December) by the Electric Power Research Institute.

EPRI was founded in 1972 by the nation's electric utilities to develop and manage a technology program for improving electric power production, distribution, and utilization.

EPRI JOURNAL Staff and Contributors Brent Barker, Editor in Chief David Dietrich, Managing Editor Ralph Whitaker, Feature Editor Taylor Moore, Senior Feature Writer David Boutacoff, Feature Writer Eugene Robinson, Technical Editor Mary Ann Garneau, Production Editor Jean Smith, Program Secretary

Richard G. Claeys, Director Corporate Communications Division

Graphics Consultant: Frank A. Rodriquez

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Cover: The incredible number-crunching capabilities of supercomputers have allowed scientists to mathematically model complex systems and processes that eluded them in earlier decades. Researchers hope that new supercomputing concepts will open possibilities for real-time control of the nation's highly interconnected power networks. (Photo: Topographical seismic modeling, courtesy Floating Point Systems.) EDITORIAL The Supercomputer Challenge

The emergence of a new generation of supercomputers is challenging some long-held beliefs in the electric power industry concerning the suitability of meeting utility needs with large number-crunching machines. Over the last decade, most attempts to use supercomputers for such numerically intense problems as modeling regional power systems have been neither satisfactory nor economically viable. As described in this month's cover story, there exists a mismatch between the design of traditional supercomputers and the requirements of utility analysis. Now, a variety of new supercomputers are coming to market, offering wider choices in design and price. Of particular interest to utilities are relatively inexpensive array processors that can be attached to conventional computers, enabling them to act like supercomputers for particular kinds of massive numerical calculations. Another promising development is the use of many small concurrent processors, which employ what might be called the piranha approach to super­ computing-breaking a problem down into numerous parts that can be simultaneously attacked. Even more startling developments in mathematical techniques lie just around the corner. Expert systems, for example, may help utilities model the problem-solving techniques of their fore­ most experts, while neural networks learn from experience to recognize disturbance patterns in power systems and take remedial action before they lead to catastrophic failure. The computational. complexity of controlling power systems is increasing rapidly as utility networks become more interconnected and as the wheeling of power becomes more commonplace. The need for on-line analysis of voltage and transient stabilities of future power systems has been evident for some time, but only with the advent of affordable new computer technologies can such analysis be considered feasible. Much has already been learned about adapting system analysis codes for use on comput­ ers with innovative designs. EPRI, working through Wisconsin Electric Power Company and ESCA, Inc., has already made available for control centers the steady-state security monitoring and assess­ ment of both thermal and voltage conditions in complex power systems. In addition, evolution of pro­ cessor technology has made it possible to have real-time digital control and protection. The formidable challenge for the next decade is to build on this framework of knowledge and new computer technologies by developing the necessary software and defining the hardware needs for control centers in order to provide on-line analysis and control of dynamic conditions for increasingly complex power systems.

Narain G. Hingorani Vice President, Electrical Systems Division RESEARCH UPDATE 38 FREY: A Fuel Rod Evaluation Code Following a mechanistic modeling approach, the FREY fuel rod behavior code is a valuable tool for reload licensing, plant support, and diagnostics.

40 Steam-Injected Gas Turbines Versus Combined Cycles Comparative analysis has shown that although steam­ � - � � - injected systems appear competitive for small applications,

combined cycles are preferable for plants of 150 MW or - .. ---r ·,"'' -t'll"',ll,,':Wl,t..�i;:---��: -� .--...... ""1 larger. DJ·�f I I•"*'"' ,-. �· . .�I)"• , 16 Exploratory Research 43 New Responses to Transmission System 26 Solid Waste Challenges Increased wheeling, competition, and regulatory constraints have encouraged utilities to develop sophisticated design and analysis tools that help make the most of existing lines.

46 TOXRISK: Computerized Health Risk Assessment The TOXRISK computer program enables utility managers to estimate safe doses of potentially toxic materials and ensures that appropriate calculation procedures are being applied.

48 Decontamination of BWR Fuel Bundles Demonstrated avoidance of corrosion attack during nuclear fuel bundle decontamination has opened the door for tests of full-system decontamination using the LOMI process . DEPARTMENTS 50 Dynamic Benefits of Energy Storage 36 Tech Transfer News 55 Calendar Two new computer models are being designed to help utilities realize the operating flexibility and reliability 53 New Technical Reports 56 Authors and Articles benefits provided by energy storage systems. 55 New Computer Software EPRIJOURNAL

Volume 13, Number 7 October/November 1988

EDITORIAL

The Supercomputer Challenge

COVER STORY

4 Supercomputers for the Utility Future New types of supercomputing machines promise to improve power system modeling and network control at a time when increased capabilities are particularly needed.

FEATURES

16 Directions in Exploratory Research EPRl's growing exploratory research program is searching out and developing new areas of science that can make a difference for the future of the utility industry.

26 Energy From Waste: Recovering a Throwaway Resource Crowded landfills have brought a new urgency to the nation's waste disposal problems and new thinking about the incentives for waste-to-energy projects. 4 Supercomputers

atmosphere are helping utilities provide ever, supercomputers have not pro­ A Multiplicity more reliable electricity service to their vided utilities with sufficient com­ of Machines customers. putational power to analyze highly Still, the direct use of supercomput­ interconnected power systems in real Once a rare and monolithic tool for only the ers by utilities has remained limited, time (i.e., on-line, as events occur). highest-priority projects, the supercomputer has even though the electric power indus­ At present, only an analysis of the now evolved into a whole family of powerful but try ranks as a major purchaser of most thermal limitations on power systems is less expensive machines created in a variety of other kinds of computers. Part of the routinely conducted in real time at re­ shapes and sizes. The addition of parallel pro­ explanation is that most utility business gional control centers. As power sys­ cessing options to the standard serial computer operations, such as sorting through tem operations become more complex, architecture has opened up the world of applica­ meter readings and issuing bills for ser­ regional control centers also need to do tions and drawn in many new manufacturers, vice, are not arithmetically complex and on-line analyses of voltage conditions who are now competing feverishly for pieces of can be handled adequately by conven­ and system stability. Such calculations a growing global market. tional computers. In addition, the basic are so complex, however, that today's design of most early supercomputers utility computers may take minutes made them in.efficient at solving those to simulate events that can occur in utility problems that are most computa­ seconds-thus precluding real-time tionally intense, such as power system analysis. modeling. "Maintaining proper voltage condi­ This situation may soon change tions and transient stability has become dramatically, as two trends in the com­ a serious concern for many utilities," puter industry begin to make super­ says Robert Iveson, technical adviser in computing much more attractive for EPRI's Electrical Systems Division. "Not electric utility applications. First, a vari­ being able to do the calculations on ety of fundamentally new concepts are these parameters in real time intro­ being introduced into supercomputer duces unnecessary conservatism in de­ design, including some that are imme­ sign and increases margins of safety. diately applicable to power system For today's requirements, we need to modeling. Second, new software tech­ have both calculations done on-line at niques are providing approaches to control centers." solving utility problems that take better EPRI began exploring ways to im­ advantage of the new supercomputer prove the use of supercomputers to designs. model power system operations at a EPRI has been monitoring and influ­ workshop held in 1977. The general encing these two trends for more than consensus of opinion to emerge from • I 10 years. As a result, the electric utility the meeting was that conventional -- industry is gaining greater ability to serial computers-which can solve utilize supercomputers just at a time a problem only one step at a time­ when the growing complexity of power would remain inadequate for real-time systems is outstripping the computa­ system control, even if their speed was tional tools currently available. increased manyfold. As an alternative, the workshop at­ Utility applications tendees identified various ways power As transmission networks become more system equations could be solved on highly interconnected and as massive parallel processors-supercomputers wheeling of power becomes more com­ that can attack multiple parts of a huge mon, utilities need faster and more pre­ problem simultaneously. "Progress cise ways to model system operations. in power system computing has been According to an EPRI study, for exam­ unduly slow because of limitations of ple, wheeling transactions increased computer hardware," one engineer at Floating Point Systems array processors 12-fold from 1961 to 1983. So far, how- the workshop stated bluntly. "The one

6 EPRI JOURNAL October/November 1988 Cray-2 supercomputer

Intel iPSC/2 personal supercomputer

Thinking Machines Corp. Connection Machine

Ardent personal supercomputer Innovative Concepts in Supercomputing

----- Instructions -----oata

Traditionally, supercomputers have been designed to perform Serial computer individual arithmetic operations on data one step at a time. Such ... serial computers are now being replaced by machines that can Serial attack several parts of a large computer ...... problem simultaneously-an with addition ...... approach called parallel pro­ pipeline cessing. The simplest example is the addition to the serial com­ puter of "arithmetic pipelines,'' which shunt a continuous stream Vector of data to a separate track for computer quick performance of a particular operation. Another approach, vector computing, breaks a data stream into smaller groups and performs one function on all the streams simultaneously. An array processor attached to a serial computer can also operate on multiple data streams, but can Serial accommodate separate instruc­ computer with tions for each stream. Concur­ array processor rent processors are even more independent, dividing up the problem efficiently for speed Ill of solution and sharing data Ill when needed. Ill

Concurrent I processors ... I + t ... t I ... bright prospect in an otherwise gloomy How Computers Stack Up outlook is parallel processing." Relative capabilities of different types of computers are difficult to capture in one discrete unit, A matter of mismatch but general comparisons of overall performance can be made by normalization to an arbitrary Responding to the challenge issued by base-in this case a value of 1 for the capabilities of a standard personal computer. Super­ the workshop participants, EPRI spon­ computers clearly overshadow other machines presently in broad use, including large main­ sored a series of research projects to frames. However, recent introduction of small, "personal" supercomputers and specialized see how well various new kinds of su­ add-ons such as array processors are quickly narrowing the gap, offering much improved percomputers, each with its own spe­ capability at a relatively modest cost. cial parallel-processing architecture, could be used to solve power system equations. One of the early conclusions to emerge from this research was that 1000 the most popular type of supercom­ puter design is not compatible with the special needs of power system model­ ers. There was also concern about reli­ ability and cost-effectiveness. Consider the problem of calculating power flows in a 1000-bus utility net­ 800 work-about the size of the combined Ontario-New England-New York sys­ tem. From a computer's point of view, the most computationally intense part of solving this problem involves multi­ plying elements of a 1000-number array by elements of a million-number array 600 and summing the products. The 1000- Q) C) C number array represents initial voltages co at the buses, but since these are only a E .Eai first approximation, 5 to 10 rounds of it­ 0.. erative calculations must be performed "O -�Q) to reach an acceptably accurate, or co E "converged," solution. One specific 0 goal of EPRI's research has been to find z 400 a computer that can converge on an ac­ ceptable base-case solution within half a second. Then the whole iterative pro­ cedure may have to be repeated for each of 300 or so contingencies, one at a time, such as loss of generators, faulted lines, or open circuit breakers. 200 The scientific world abounds with problems involving this sort of repeti­ tious multiplication and addition of huge quantities of numbers. Most of today's supercomputers were designed to speed up such calculations through two relatively simple means of parallel processing. 0 Personal Workstation Minicomputer Mainframe Supercomputer The first, called pipelining, breaks up computer computer

EPRI JOURNAL October/November 1988 9 each arithmetic operation into sequen­ tial steps that can be handled by differ­ Medical imaging (Floating Point Systems) ent circuits of the computer. Pairs of numbers to be added, for example, are pushed rapidly into these circuits like a stream of water being poured into a pipe. Although the total amount of time required to add any pair is not af­ fected, the time to add numerous pairs is decreased because all the little steps involved in the addition processes oc­ cur continuously, and many pairs of numbers are being handled at once. The second design feature that pro­ vides parallelism to most of today's su­ percomputers is called vector processing. In this scheme multiple pipelines are used to perform arithmetic operations on different pieces of data simulta­ neously. All the pipelines operate in lockstep fashion, in response to a sin­ gle series of instructions. Closely re­ lated data must be grouped into arrays (vectors) that can be fed continuously and synchronously into the pipelines, thus keeping all the units working at full speed. Supercomputers with vector processing have proved particularly useful in solving problems based on fluid flow equations, such as the air flow over an airplane wing and weather system modeling.

either pipelining nor vector processing, however, works very efficiently in solving util­ ity power system problems. TheN reason is that many of the arith­ metic calculations involve multiplying by zero, which forces the computer to waste time on numerous trivial steps in a problem. In the power flow example just discussed, the million-element array of numbers may have only a few thousand nonzero elements, corre­ sponding to the limited number of paths (transmission lines) over which current can actually flow from one bus to another. In one large power system analysis performed on a CRAY-1 (vector­ type) supercomputer, only about 1.5%

10 EPRI JOURNAL October/November 1988 Structural dynamics (David J. Benson, John Hallquist) A World of Applications

In addition to finding an increasing number of uses in the electric power industry, supercompu­ ters are opening up advanced capabilities in a wide variety of other fields. Typically they prove most useful where repetitive, massive calcula­ tions are needed, as in aerodynamic modeling, interactive training simulation, and 3-D graphics.

Aircraft simulator training (Floating Point Systems)

Three-dimensional modeling (Ardent Computer Corp.)

Atmospheric modeling (NCAR, Rolando Garcia)

Product design (Ardent Computer Corp.)

Mathematical visualization (Ardent Computer Corp.)

Aerodynamic flow simulation (NASA/Ames) of the computer's ultimate power was then passes off the parallel portions to cated in Japan. In this system, an array actually utilized! the array processor. Unlike the compo­ processor calculates system power flow "EPRI research has shown convinc­ nents of vector processors, each of the every three seconds to represent real­ ingly that vector processing does little arithmetic units of an array processor time changes caused by system faults, to speed up the solution of that type acts independently, in response to mul­ switching operations, and demand­ of computationally intense utility prob­ tiple instructions from the front-end supply regulation. The Japanese utility lem," says Iveson. "Therefore, utilities computer. reports that use of the array processor still routinely use the largest and fastest Providing such instructions to make with a minicomputer has increased cal­ serial computers available. Our research the most efficient use of an array pro­ culation speed IO-fold. has shown, however, that two new cessor presents an enormous challenge More recently, a large energy man­ types of supercomputers-array pro­ to programmers . A typical power sys­ agement system vendor has added cessors and concurrent processors­ tem program contains over 60,000 lines array processors from Floating Point offer much greater advantages for solv­ of computer code. Rewriting such a Systems to its line of energy manage­ ing power system problems." program to separate those portions that ment systems for utility control centers. should be handed off to an array pro­ According to this vendor, the addition Array processors cessor can require the better part of a of an array processor increases com­ Strictly speaking, an array processor is year for a skilled programmer, if done putational speed by an order of mag­ a number-crunching add-on that en­ manually. Fortunately, new compilers nitude at one-quarter to one-third the ables an existing serial computer to act (software that translates a program into cost of expanding mainframe capacity. like a supercomputer for certain types specific instructions for a computer) The first of these enhanced energy of parallel calculations. Developed for have been developed that can automat­ management systems will enter service signal processing (radar signal discrimi­ ically determine which parts of a calcu­ late next year. Early utility customers nation and picture enhancement), early lation can be treated in parallel. include Carolina Power & Light, Poto­ array processors were unsuitable for mac Electric Power, and New Yo rk utility use because they could not ac­ o explore the potential of array State Electric & Gas (NYSEG). commodate enough digits (32 bits) for processors for power system "We see the use of an array processor the precision needed in power system modeling, EPRI sponsored the as a logical extension of our supplier's calculations. By the early 1980s, how­ manual reprogramming of a philosophy of distributed processing," ever, array processors with greater pre­ BonnevilleT Power Administration power says Eric McClelland, a project manager cision had become commercially avail­ flow code. The code was then used in for energy control systems at NYSEG. able, and an EPRI study, performed by tests with different hardware configura­ "It allows us to put the computer power Cornell University and published in tions. One configuration, in which an where it's needed, when it's needed." 1982, concluded that they appeared to FPS-264 array processor from Floating offer a cost-effective way to achieve the Point Systems was attached to a VAX Concurrent processors goal of solving a 1000-bus power flow 11/780 super-minicomputer, solved a Both vector and array processors em­ problem in half a second. 1454-bus problem more than six times ploy a small number of powerful pro­ The great advantage of array pro­ faster than was possible on the VAX cessors whose operations are closely co­ cessors is their price-a few hundred alone. The final report for this project ordinated by instructions from a master thousand dollars, compared with (EL-4642), published in 1986, concluded processor. An alternative approach in­ several million dollars for traditional su­ that the FPS-264 "does appear attractive volves dividing up parts of a problem percomputers. This approach is particu­ for installations where large numbers of among a large number of less powerful larly cost-effective if the buyer already power flow calculations are performed processors, which may work either in has a mainframe or minicomputer to daily;" however, it cautioned that "util­ close coordination or independently. which the array processor can be at­ ity personnel would have to become With the recent development of inex­ tached, although the entire capital cost familiar with two operating systems­ pensive, high-speed, high-capacity mi­ of a small serial machine and an array one for the host computer and one for croprocessors with 32-bit precision, it is processor would still be several times the attached array processor." now possible to consider solving power less than that of a supercomputer. Such One of the first actual utility applica­ system problems by using dozens-and a front-end serial computer handles the tions of array processors came in 1984 potentially thousands-of processors. input and output of data, performs the in a dispatcher training simulator at the This possibility was explored in a re­ step-by-step parts of a calculation, and world's largest private electric utility, lo- cently completed EPRI project that used

12 EPRI JOURNAL October/November 1988 Real-Time System Monitoring

One of the functions supercomputers may some day perform for utilities is to recognize specific patterns of frequency disturbance in a power system quickly enough to take corrective action before protective relays begin disconnecting lines. Such action might, for example, involve pulsing the system with additional capacitance. By collating data from three different points in a system, as shown here, the computers may also be able to locate the source of the disturbance as it cascades through a network.

Time-20 : 08: 08

\ 20 :08:24 Computers in the Control Center

ontrol centers act as the brain and ceived virtually at once, and a vital form computationally intense func­ Ccentral nervous system of util­ function of the EMS is to prioritize tions, their basic design is not opti­ ity networks-directing the flow of them so that the human operator can mum for the sort of analyses often power, monitoring equipment func­ deal with the most important first. required for simulating a power sys­ tions, and maintaining stable oper­ Anticipating problems before they be­ tem. In addition, utilities have been ation. There are about 150 such control come critical is also an important func­ concerned about the reliability of su­ centers in the United States, manag­ tion of the EMS, which repeatedly ana­ percomputers, availability of service ing power systems that range in size lyzes hypothetical failures and checks and spare parts, maintenance prob­ from individual municipal utilities for resulting overloads. lems, and the need for more intensive with a few dozen megawatts peak ca­ In addition, the EMS performs many training of personnel. With prices of pacity to regional power pools with "housekeeping" duties, such as man­ $10 million and up, supercomputers more than 40,000 MW peak capacity. aging a huge data base, keeping track have not yet been able to compete In each of these centers, human expert of sales and purchases with other with teams of smaller computers that operators must work closely with power systems, and providing system have a substantially lower total cost. computers to ensure smooth oper­ simulation for operator training. "The time you need a supercom­ ation of the power system. Several different kinds of comput­ puter is when you are going to do The combination of computer hard­ ers may be used in a control center, complex calculations and massive pro­ ware and software that performs most performing separate EMS functions. cessing, such as large matrix manipu­ of the technical functions of a con­ Usually one or more large mainframe lations and screening and selection of trol center is called the energy man­ computers provide the raw com­ tens of thousands of contingent agement system (EMS). This system puting power needed for such appli­ events for further detailed analysis," collects and processes information cations as power flow analysis and says Neal Balu, program manager for coming to the center from tens of economic dispatch. Other, smaller power system planning and operation thousands of remote data collection computers may be dedicated to single in the Electrical Systems Division. points. Under the guidance of the operations such as operator interface "It's a computation box that's not par­ expert operator, the EMS also sends and data management. Dedicated ticularly good for user interaction-an signals to equipment throughout a minicomputers that are used to gen­ especially important point in the con­ power system to control its operation. erate graphic displays for operators trol center environment. As new types By continually measuring changes in have become particularly popular as of supercomputers become available load and determining the most eco­ the size and complexity of control cen­ at lower prices, I believe we will see nomic means of providing power, the ters require new ways of helping hu­ them used increasingly to do real-time EMS automatically dispatches gener­ mans and machines work together analysis of dynamic system condi­ ating units and controls the output of more efficiently. tions, which must now be done off­ individual generators. So far, supercomputers have played line. But the need for other types of During emergencies, computers and a relatively minor role in control cen­ computers will remain, particularly operators in control centers must ters. Although the current generation in the area of man-machine interface work even more closely together. of supercomputers could, in theory, and up-front data collection and pro­ Hundreds of alarm signals may be re- enhance the ability of an EMS to per- cessing." D

14 EPRI JOURNAL October/November 1988 an Intel personal supercomputer con­ lems," says Iveson. "Both our research Unlike circuits in ordinary computers, taining 16 microprocessors. The EPRI and research conducted elsewhere have those in a neural network can change power system stability code SYREL was indicated that the speed of solution can their interconnections in response to modified to run on the Intel machine rise proportionately with the number of incoming data. Repeated patterns in in three ways, each with a different processors you are using. As electronics the data reinforce certain connections amount of coordination among the prices continue to fall, I foresee a time at the expense of others. Eventually the various processors. This experiment when we could model a power system neurocomputer begins to recognize showed that the greatest speedup in by assigning one concurrent processor these patterns and respond to them. calculations resulted when the micro­ to each bus in the system. Such an Although neurocomputers are still in processors acted independently-in approach not only would give us the their infancy, existing models have which case they are called concurrent speed we need for on-line voltage and been taught to read aloud from printed processors. stability analysis but could also ease the material and to analyze the bill-paying Specifically, for a 140-bus reliabil- task of reprogramming." habits of loan applicants. ity problem, when the 16 processors "It's still too early to estimate the im­ worked in close coordination, they Thinking computers pact of artificial intelligence and neural were able to evaluate contingencies Further in the future lies the possibility networks on the utility industry, but only 3.5 times faster than a single pro­ that computers would not so much my guess is that eventually it will be cessor; when they worked indepen­ solve specific utility problems as profound," states Iveson. "The possi­ dently, however, they increased the "think" about system operation-in bilities for predictive analysis inherent overall computation speed by a factor the sense of learning from experience in these techniques fall into one of the of 10.8. The key to the speed difference to recognize and control broad patterns problem categories defined as a 'grand was found to be the time wasted in of network behavior. Progress toward challenge' in the Office of Science and communicating interim results among this goal is now being made in two Technology Policy's recent report A Re­ the processors when their activity was converging fields of computer science: search and Development Strategy for High­ tightly coordinated. artificial intelligence and neural Performance Computing. networks. "I can foresee all sorts of applica­ nother important milestone Artificial intelligence is basically a tions," Iveson concludes. "Computers in the use of concurrent pro­ software approach to teaching comput­ connected by high-capacity fiber-optic cessors was reached recently ers how to learn from experience. In links to solid-state power control de­ at Sandia National Laborato­ so-called expert systems, for example, a vices throughout a network could ries.A Although not related directly to team of "knowledge engineers" quizzes watch for voltage or frequency changes utility applications, this experiment an expert in some field and then tries that signal impending problems and has done much to dispel earlier doubts to model the responses on a computer, could initiate corrective action. Ad­ about the practical feasibility of using in an attempt to solve problems the vanced computational methods based very large numbers of concurrent pro­ same way the expert does. Already on random variations in system condi­ cessors-a result that could have sig­ some experimental use of expert sys­ tions could be used for the first time in nificant advantages for power system tems has been made by utilities anxious the analysis of large power systems. modeling. In the experiment a com­ to automate certain operation and main­ And, in case of system blackout, both puter with 1024 processors was able to tenance procedures on the basis of the artificial intelligence and neural net­ achieve speedups ranging from 1011- insights of experienced personnel. works could be used to guide operators fold to 1020-fold for problems related Puget Sound Power & Light, for exam­ through the restoration process. We're to wave propagation, mechanics, and ple, is installing an on-line expert sys­ on the threshold of tremendous im­ fluid flow. This achievement contradicts tem developed for EPRI at the Univer­ provements in system monitoring and a long-standing belief in the cybernetics sity of Washington to diagnose system control, which can lead to highly auto­ community that speedup factors of outages, while Southern California Edi­ mated, more efficient, more competi- more than about 100 would not be pos­ son has developed an expert system to tive operation." • sible in practice, no matter how many analyze problems at earthen dams. processors were linked in parallel. By contrast, a new kind of hardware "Concurrent processors now clearly called the neurocomputer or neural look like the way to go in seeking a bet­ network is literally trying to mimic the This article was written by John Douglas, science writer. Technical background information was provided by Robert ter way to solve power system prob- way human brains process information. Iveson, Electrical Systems Division.

EPRI JOURNAL October/November 1988 15 Ceramics

Fl

Heat DIRECTIONS ID EXPWRATORY RESEARCH

Electrochemistry I

/y ! -z/,) � i Semiconductors! �

�athematics

T Technology development has always funded is an immediate and continuing it take to prove the concept or justify been a deliberate process, but for most of challenge for Kalhammer and his col­ dropping it? history it was usually founded on strata leagues. "We must have a strategic per­ of science randomly uncovered around spective," he says, "in allocating our re­ Organizing the search an outcropping-an earlier chance dis­ sources to the areas of greatest potential The organization of EPRI's exploratory re­ covery. The circumstance draws com­ impact. But at the same time, we must search reflectsits strategic purposes and ment from Fritz Kalhammer, an EPRI vice retain the intellectual and operating needs. The program is directed by Kai­ president and division director. Reflect­ flexibility to recognize the potential in hammer himself with the aid of two se­ ing on such prototypical innovators as unconventional ideas and find ways of nior science advisers, mechanical engi­ Edison, he remarks, "We're less likely to supporting long shots. neer John Maulbetsch and physicist Tom run across scientificnuggets accidentally "Putting it another way," Kalhammer Schneider, longtime EPRI staff members today. They aren't on the surface-cer­ concludes, "scientific expertise and ratio­ with complementary academic back­ tainly not in significant numbers. It takes nal analysis aren't enough; we also have grounds and areas of research experi­ more thought and resources now, often to bring instinct to bear, and a willing­ ence. John Stringer, although mainly re­ the systematic cross-disciplinary effort of ness to take greater risks than we have sponsible for materials research, is still entire groups, both to find the lode and been used to." He characterizes EPRI's closely associated with the exploratory then to map the geology of the region­ two broad purposes in its conduct of ex­ research group after serving as its tech­ develop the scientific basis that enables ploratory research as building knowl­ nical director during several formative us to use what we've found." edge and fostering innovation. years. The systematic elaboration of knowl­ What do they do? Maulbetsch cites Selecting with a purpose edge is a more established objective, hav­ two responsibilities of the advisers. One Even as discovery and innovation are be­ ing been pursued at EPRI even before the is to learn enough about several scientific coming more difficult and expensive, formal inception of exploratory research fields to recognize good work and to their importance is growing. Individuals, in 1985 under John Stringer, a metallur­ sense whether EPRI might benefit from companies, and entire nations are com­ gist and the director of materials re­ supporting it. The other is to look around peting in a time of ever more rapid insti­ search, and Walter Esselman, recently EPRI's programs, helping to evaluate in­ tutional and economic change. Tech­ retired as the director of technical assess­ stances where technology seems to have nology is simultaneously a cause and an ment and evaluation. Two examples of run up against limits and could benefit effect in all this. Therefore, all of science knowledge building-cases where there from greater understanding of the un­ is being probed more insistently and sys­ had been significant limitations in the derlying science. In both cases, he says, tematically than ever-not just for basic underlying science and, at the same "We're looking for things we don't un­ answers to practical problems but also time, clear opportunities for major derstand or can't compute, trying to fo­ for new knowledge from which further advance-are the development of so­ cus the best minds in a field on work that discoveries can flow and, even beyond called clean steels, which have excep­ will elucidate fundamental principles." that, for the truly conceptual leaps that tional resistance to temper embrittlement At the same time, the exploratory re­ put us into altogether new territory. For in a steam environment, and the discov­ search science advisers look for the un­ many people in the scientific and tech­ ery of biological organisms and processes expected. Schneider explains why EPRI nical community, such inquiry calls for that can liquefy coal. must work to be receptive to ideas from a special name: exploratory research. outside the scientific mainstream. "Our Exploratory research opportunities for uch efforts as these, whether usual selection criteria mostly favor de­ EPRI are vast. Technology for the gener­ successful or not, are only part liberate research, over considerable time, ation, delivery, and use of electricity has of exploratory research, how­ by well-known and established investi­ its roots in nearly every area of science­ ever. Fostering innovation in gators, in areas we already know some­ for example, such broad categories as scienceS is equally important. While that's thing about, and probably aimed toward materials, electrochemistry, fluid me­ just as easy to contemplate, it's much publication in refereed journals. All well chanics, combustion, heat transfer, more difficult to implement as a research and good, but this tends to shut out the superconductivity, and many of the program. Recognizing the potential of occasional radical proposal from an un­ earth and life sciences. And EPRI's intel­ an obscure invention almost implies se­ conventional source-the inventive lectual resources are nearly as extensive lecting it in advance. And after that loner at work in a garage somewhere." as the potential topics for exploration. As comes the judgment of how much re­ Schneider goes on to describe a philos­ a result, the selection of research to be search funding is warranted: what will ophy of fairly modest (up to $7 5,000),

18 EPRI JOURNAL October/November 1988 Research Focus: AMORPHOUS PHOTOVOLTAIC MATERIALS

ith single-crystal silicon, the mainstay of solar cells, nearing the limits of its energy conversion efficiency and production economy, researchers are looking more closely at another pho­ tovoltaic formulation: amorphous (noncrystalline) silicon. Thin­ film solar cells of this material can probably be cheaply produced by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition, but so far their low energy conversion efficiency offsets that potential economy. Exploratory research is now under way to better understand and control the optical and electrical properties of amorphous silicon and its alloys. An example is photoconductivity (light-induced capacity to carry current), especially in the alloy elements that convert long wavelengths (infrared energy) in a "tandem" cell. Sponsored by EPRI, researchers at four univer­ sities are taking somewhat different but closely cooperative approaches to these problems. Te rry Peterson, project manager for EPRl's Advanced Power Systems Division, cites work at the University of Illinois, where exploratory research program funds are furthering experiments in how films grow-including dif- short-term (up to 18 months) funding to prove innovative concepts or assess their Renewed Commitment feasibility. "We're trying to cover some of the opportunities that are generally too elatively high-risk, future-oriented into its own under the guidance of risky for any single EPRI division to take Rresearch isn't completely new to Richard Balzhiser, beginning when he on-but which would fit there if success­ EPRI. In the Institute's earliest days it was R&D vice president. This year, his ful and seen to justify follow-on devel­ was called long-term research, it was first as EPRI's president, the program opment." part of the responsibility of each divi­ commands its own budget of nearly $7 Searching for subjects to explore, like sion, and it amounted to as much as million. EPRI's six technical divisions carrying out the research that follows, 10% of the overall R&D budget. fund a comparable amount on their is beyond the capability of any three or But such work took a back seat for own. The approximately $14 million four individuals. Staff members of EPRI's some years . Demonstrating the com­ total represents about 5% of the Insti­ technical divisions are the first-line re­ mercial readiness of newly developed tute's current R&D budget of $27 4 sources for exploratory research projects, technologies commanded as much as million. whether with their own initiative and 20% of the budget well into the 1980s. And the commitment is growing. funding or with an assist from the explor­ Also, utilities had institutional eco­ Central exploratory research funding atory research team and its budget. nomic problems-the costs of fuel, alone is to be 5% by 1991-92, accord­ EPRI staff are encouraged to submit capital, and long construction inter­ ing to a management proposal re­ their own ideas for projects, which may vals, as well as lower revenues due to cently approved by EPRI's Board of be funded from a technical division bud­ slow demand growth. These called for Directors. Further, the technical divi­ get or by the exploratory research pro­ a focus on technical fixes that would sions are being asked to strengthen gram, as seems appropriate. This initia­ add to the life, efficiency, and re­ the exploratory probes that support tive gets a nod from Fritz Kalhammer. liability of existing plants. their individual research missions. Sy "All of us need to become better fisher­ Slow growth for utilities has also Alpert welcomes these actions. "If men if EPRI is to contribute significantly meant severe cuts in the sales and rev­ exploratory research is to have any to innovation," he says. "We must en­ enues of their suppliers. The result? chance of success, it must be protected courage ideas to surface. As one member "Manufacturers' research for the U.S. over the long term by executive com­ of our Science Advisory Committee tells power industry has been drying up mitment. In an ordinary management me, we've got to reward innovators even across the board," says EPRI Fellow Sy sense, you can never justify spending when they fail." Alpert, pointing to R&D consolida­ money this way. You've got to want John Stringer emphasizes the impor­ tions, mergers, cutbacks, and the out­ exploratory research." tance of "looking for somebody who right market withdrawal of several EPRI Vice President Fritz Kalham­ wants to pick up the ball and is avail­ companies. "This also means fewer mer has executive responsibility for able-who can spare some time from his organizations for EPRI to contract with the new program, but his Energy or her other duties." Stringer's people­ as we try to fill in." Management and Utilization Division oriented style shows here. "My own re­ The need for EPRI's renewed atten­ is only an administrative home for its action is, the project management cham­ tion to exploratory research was ex­ budget and small senior staff. Tech­ pion really has to be here, at EPRI, or we pressed by Floyd Culler before he re­ nical management of nearly all proj­ won't get a decent piece of work." tired last winter, ending 10 years as ects is decentralized among EPRI's re­ EPRI'spresident . On several occasions search divisions. This decision was here are other views on poten­ he put forth the provocative image of made early on, and it applies both to tial staff limitations and how to the Institute's gradually diminishing research of cross-divisional interest deal with them. Stringer's col­ scientific base for new electricity tech­ and to projects that amplify just one leagues argue that a topic could nologies. "We're finishing off the sci­ division's efforts. The idea is not only beT too im portant to neglect. Kalhammer ence of the 1930s and 19 40s," he in­ to take advantage of the Institute's plans to borrow experts from else­ sisted, "even a little bit from the 1950s. wide range of talent, but also to en­ where-universities, private research What will be the scientific base for sure interaction among all EPRI organizations, and national laborato­ EPRI's program 15 years from now?" groups and facilitate the transfer of ex­ ries-if need be. Alternatively, he pro­ One of the answers is the explor­ ploratory results into one or more pro­ poses to use the new concept of EPRI atory research program. It has come grams of applied R&D. D Fellows to support individuals in devel-

20 EPRI JOURNAL October/November 1988 BINARY FLUID MIXTURES

he thermodynamic proper­ ties of such working fluids as water and Freon are essentially fixed factors in the perform­ ance of power plants and heat pumps. But there is reason to believe that system effi­ ciencies can be improved by using what are called binary mixtures-combinations of two working fluids that have different prop­ erties. Water and ammonia have been pro­ posed for steam power plant use. R22 and R114 refrigerants are suggested as a mix­ ture that might lift the performance coeffi­ cient of heat pumps as much as 32% above the best obtainable with R22 alone. Jong Kim, a project manager in EPRl's Nuclear Power Division and head of the lnstitute's exploratory research in heat transfer, explains that the cooler fluid in a conventional heat exchanger can be heated only to its saturation temperature (at a given system pressure). A binary mixture, however, might be designed so that, in effect, its saturation temperature rises, potentially affording much greater latitude in heat exchanger operation. But binary mixtures are not well under­ stood. To illustrate how they can contradict expectations, Kim describes a single finding by the National Bureau of Standards (NBS), which is performing exploratory research under EPRl's sponsorship and sharing heavily in the cost. "In a horizontal pipe or tube containing a single fluid under annular flow conditions," Kim says, "heat transfer is greater at the top, the result of gravity and a thinner annular film of liquid there. "But with a binary mixture, the annular composition varies around the periphery and there's greater heat transfer at the bottom of the tube." Seeing the implications of this q"'81itative difference for future equip­ merit Jlesign, Kim .oounts if as an ea,ty suc- '*'•� tory' f� .. HOT SUPERCONDUCTIVITY

opper and iron are still the materials that superconductors must outperform in electric utility service. The figure of merit is a current density of 1000-2000 A/cm2 , and in very thin films today's "hot" superconductors of synthetic ceramic oxides beat that by more than 1,000,000 A/cm2 . But in wire-like cross sections big enough to carry real-world electric currents, the new superconductors fall short, according to To m Schneider, one of EPRl's senior science advisers for exploratory research. "If utilities are to exploit them at high currents and in high magnetic fields," he says, "we've got to understand and control such characteristics as critical current level, weak links, and flux pinning." That is the aim of multiyear projects just begun by University of Wis­ consin and Stanford researchers, who will study the "1-2-3" superconduc­ tive oxides-so-called because of the approximate ratio of their yttrium, barium, and copper constituents. Flux pinning, for example, is critical to the practical use of the new super­ conductors because they are penetrated by flux lines. "When fl ux lines move under magnetic field influence," Schneider explains, "current car­ rying capacity is seriously reduced. So they've got to be stabilized-pinned. "We know all these characteristics are affected by techniques used in mate{tal fabrication and processing. The work at Wisconsin and Stanford sho!Jfa improve our understanding of what takes place, at an intimate, s� tevet ' oping their own expertise and, with it, important new exploratory research di­ Larger Role rections. Sy Alpert, named EPRI's first Fellow just last year, is closely involved with ex­ ploratory research. An inquisitive EPRI research strategist and planner since 1973, mostly in fossil fuels and their con­ version processes, he now pilots an ex­ ploratory research associates program. Through this program 15 leading Mid­ western university faculty members pro­ vide state-of-the-art assessments of can­ didate exploratory research topics. Initially Alpert's guidance of the re­ search associates will add ideas more than manpower to the effort, but it will constitute an important link between EPRI and the scientific community and is likely to stimulate worthwhile explor­ atory research at the associates' institu­ tions.

Assigning the tasks All things considered, much of EPRI's ex­ ike other R&D at EPRI, exploratory schedules, minimal reporting require­ ploratory research guidance consists of Lresearch is contracted out. But the ments, the rights to patentable re­ catalyzing the efforts of others, both in­ distribution of contracts among re­ sults, and the certainty of research side EPRI and elsewhere: searching for search organizations is quite different. funding over a reasonable term, nota­ needs, defining topics, screening them, Industrial firms, consultants, national bly the three-year "lifetime" of a grad­ matching them up with investigators and laboratories, and other R&D organiza­ uate student. funds-networking in every current sense tions predominate for most EPRI More flexibilityin these areas is one of the word. work, together holding 91% of all In­ of the prerequisites for doing substan­ With the sensing mechanisms in place, stitute research contracts. Universities tially more exploratory research, and the concern is how to make sure that account for only 9%. The figures for EPRI's contracting office has therefore they stay open and receptive. Strategic contracts funded solely under the ex­ introduced a new form of work state­ planning and rigorous evaluation of pro­ ploratory research program tell a dif­ ment for university research agree­ posals have their place in the decision ferent story: 61% held by commercial ments. process of exploratory research manage­ and government organizations, 39 % Institute funds are still subject to an­ ment. But there's another side: rigor can by universities. Clearly, the new pro­ nual budget approval by EPRI's Board be carried to the point where it stifles gram is bringing more opportunities of Directors, but for all practical pur­ innovation. for university participation. poses, research projects that rely on Speaking generally of EPRI's research Governed by the need for specific graduate students have the needed managers, including himself, Kalham­ technology development, EPRI's con­ longer-term commitment. "In effect," mer acknowledges, "We're trained and tracting practices have in the past says John Stringer, "we front the conditioned to be analytical. It's an attri­ been somewhat at odds with the ma­ whole three years of a university proj­ bute we especially need in EPRI's applied jor traditions of university research­ ect right at the start. We tell them R&D. But when we work with new con­ which include open-ended work they've got the money; they can count cepts and fragments of ideas, it's easy for statements, freedom from milestone on it." D all of us to think of reasons why they won't work." His point is that explor­ atory research must operate differently

EPRI JOURNAL October/November 1988 23 Horizons of Exploratory Research

The scope of nearly 130 separate EPRI exploratory research contracts-including evaluations of new prospects-is represented by the following examples:

Biotechnology Mathematics • Genetic ecology and bacterial communities • Global nonparametric estimation of spatial covariance patterns • Microbial coal desulfurization and identification • Microbial coal processing Polymers

Ceramics • Monomers that expand on polymerization • Oxidation phenomena in water treeing • Ceramic electrolyte for fuel cell applications • Prediction of deterioration rate of utility cable insulation • Ceramic materials for molten carbonate fuel cells • Wire-reinforced ceramic composites Semiconductors

Steels • Advanced silicon materials tor photovoltaic and power devices • Electron beam skull melt silicon crystals • Enhanced sulfidation resistance of iron, nickel, and cobalt alloys • Modeling of amorphous silicon photovoltaic device structures • Evaluation of electron beam Czochralski superalloy crystals • Multielement diffusion coatings Chemical and Physical Nature of Coal • NiAI alloys tor elevated temperature shape memory applications • Nondestructive evaluation of grain boundary segregation • Depolymerization mechanism of coal • Homogeneous catalysts for methanol synthesis Superconductivity • Methanol synthesis research • Selective oxidation of pyrite in a fluidized bed • High-temperature oxide superconducting materials • Critical current density in high-Tc metal oxide superconductors Combustion Physics and Chemistry • Superconducting magnetic energy storage • Coke particulate formation and destruction during combustion Prospective Exploratory Research Areas • Interaction of chemistry and fluid mechanics in NO, formation • N 0 formation in combustion systems • Accelerated life testing 2 • Advanced thermodynamic cycles and processes Electrochemistry • Artificial intelligence and expert systems • Chaotic processes • Corrosion of ceramics and refractories • Conductive plastics • Electrocatalytic gas reactions on the surface of solid-state electrolytes • Diamond films • Electrochemical detection of the initiation of stress corrosion cracking • Electrokinetic effects in power transformers • Fluoropolymer sulfonic acids tor phosphoric acid fuel cell cathodes • Fate of redox-sensitive elements in groundwater • Mechanisms of ultracapacitors

• Global CO2 sources and sinks • Photoelectrochemical devices for solar hydrogen generation • Hormetic and harmful effects of radiation on immunity • Nonequilibrium plasmas Fluid Mechanics and Heat Transfer • Reactions of compressed air with common minerals • Boiling heat transfer degradation in binary mixtures • Fluid-elastic excitation in tube bundles Instrumentation • Natural convection melting and solidification

• Differential optical absorption spectroscopic studies of N,Oy cycle • Tw o-phase flow fundamentals • Fiber optic sensors • Vortex breakdown and turbulent mixing in important ways: the definition of stantly obvious why some potential be a whole list of which coals, which or­ tasks, the selection of researchers, the topics would be important to a mission­ ganisms, and how fast. awarding of contracts, and especially the oriented R&D organization like EPRI. "And that can be a trap," he goes on. daily management of the work-all must Topics of past EPRI exploratory research "There's an easy fascination in empirical be done with a studiously open mind workshops suggest the "soft focus" that work, cataloging what happens without and a light hand. is possible: amorphous materials, water finding out how or why. Actually, the Sy Alpert agrees, and he injects a treeing in polymers, methods for acceler­ how and why have deeper, longer­ warning. "The first thing you learn is ated testing, plasma processing. lasting appeal for a scientific investi­ that if you overmanage this kind of re­ Amorphous materials were the first ex­ gator." EPRI is therefore moving into search, you'll screw it up. There's no way ploratory research workshop topic ad­ more methodical conceptual work, zero­ of pacing it or accelerating it. All you can dressed, in 1985. These materials yield ing in on how the enzyme action occurs do is give it the right support, the right improved electrical or material efficien­ and then aiming for molecular biological people, and stand back." cies (or both) in two important technol­ techniques-synthesis or perhaps ge­ To a great extent, an exploratory re­ ogies, voltage transformers and solar netic splicing-to mimic the bugs with search sponsor's mission and purpose cells. But they bring unique problems as simpler, man-made materials. are reflected in the choice of investi­ well. Amorphous metals, for example, Richard Balzhiser, EPRI's president, be­ gators. But how to decide? What gives are embrittled by the annealing needed lieves that science is at a comparable EPRI confidence that an area of science to improve their magnetic properties; point with the recent discovery of high­ warrants support? How do you know? this is a limiting factor in making trans­ temperature superconductivity. "We Often you don't, Alpert says, especially former cores. know the phenomenon is real, and mate­ in ill-explored areas or when face-to-face Workshop organizer Robert Jaffee and rials have been fabricated that super­ with a totally unfamiliar hypothesis: 3 other EPRI researchers were among 12 conduct at higher temperatures than "You go by feel, you go by intuition." members of a committee that convened ever before. But the experimental work is 39 world-class participants for a week­ well ahead of our theoretical under­ tringer particularly likes what long series of sessions on the topics of standing." EPRI calls a specialists' work­ amorphous material structure, glass for­ The fundamental promise of these shop, an occasion for targeting mation, magnetic glasses, semicon­ new materials governs EPRI's research a topic, elaborating its research ductors, and mechanical and chemical in the area, Balzhiser says. "Hot su­ Sneeds and possibilities, and thus docu­ properties. EPRI's objective was to reach perconductors could comprehensively menting the criteria for reasonable, prac­ some conclusion about what research transform many technologies and the tical exploratory projects. "We'll pick the avenues particularly warranted support. ways they're used. The excitement is best 10 or 20 people in the world," he The problem of temperature embrittle­ justified." But, he cautions, "the whole says, "and invite them to come together ment was indeed judged to be one such field of inquiry is still very much at the and discuss the topic. We get at least 85% topic; and a workshop participant, Peter level of basic science. The payoff will attendance. Then we listen." Haasen of West Germany's University of come when we develop a sufficient body As Stringer describes it, the process Gottingen, is now embarked on explora­ of knowledge to understand the phe­ can be almost circular; that is, EPRI's col­ tory research for EPRI. nomenon and its mechanisms. Then we lective sense of potential researchers to Glamour doesn't always go along with can engineer materials for real products some extent determines the exact topic to exploratory research, but frontiers have and applications. That will be the time be explored. "As we listen, two things their fascination, appealing in different when exploratory research has done its gradually happen. First, it begins to clar­ ways to investigators and prospective us­ job; and helping us get there is what ex­ ify in our minds that there is something ers of new science. Bacterial processing cites me." • here. And second, among all these bright of coal is one example, offering the tanta­ people, we discover-it's a feeling-that lizing prospect of using living organisms there's one or more of them that we can in controlled fashion to upgrade coal into work with. It's intuitive; it isn't quanti­ a cleaner fuel or to transmute coal tar fiable." wastes. "We've reported on several occa­

sions about bacteria, fungi, and enzymes This article was written by Ralph Whitaker, feature editor. Topics and talent that act on coal," says John Stringer. Background information was provided by Fritz Kalhammer, Energy Management and Utilization Division; John Stringer, Despite the range of technology em­ "They liquefy it, they remove sulfur or Materials Support; John Maulbetsch and Tom Schneider, Ex­ ploratory Research; and Sy Alpert, EPRI Fellow. ployed by electric utilities, it isn't in- other ash constituents. There's come to

EPRI JOURNAL October/November 1988 25

arbage is finally getting some 200 more plants are expected to come on­ respect, or at least some seri­ line in the next five years, and by the turn ous attention. U.S. municipal­ of the century as much as 40% of the ities and industries generate waste will be processed by 400 resource moreG than 200 million tons of it a year. and energy recovery facilities. Electric Managing municipal solid waste (MSW) utilities are likely to participate in most usually accounts for the fastest-growing of them, either as customers for steam segment of a municipality's budget. or electricity or as facility owners and And more than money is at stake. In operators. addition to finding an affordable way of managing garbage disposal, communi­ Options for energy ties are concerned that it be an approach Of a number of resource recovery tech­ they can live with. Space is simply get­ nologies in various stages of develop­ ting tight. In many areas landfill is rap­ ment and use, two options are currently idly reaching capacity, and in cases favored for converting waste into energy: where land is still available, public oppo­ mass burning, and processing MSW into sition has hindered the opening of new refuse-derived fuel (RDF). fills. Even where the option is allowed, Mass-burntechnology possesses a key piling up trash has its limits: New York virtue in that it permits all kinds of refuse City's Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Is­ to be burned quickly and evenly. A crane land, already nearly 200 feet high, is plucks garbage from a pit and dumps projected to peak at 500 feet; it won't be it into a hopper, which funnels it to a able to go any higher because it would traveling pitched grate. As it descends interfere with Newark International Air­ through a furnace 8 feet tall, the garbage port's flight path! burns at a high temperature (about Communities that can't stack garbage 2500°F), producing superheated steam up, ship it out. Some Long Island towns that can be sold to customers, including transport it as far away as Michigan. The utilities. In the process a gallon of gar­ Long Island garbage barge that was com­ bage becomes about a pint of landfill, pelled to complete a 162-day odyssey and one ton of garbage produces about before finding a port for its cargo is 525 kWh of electricity. legendary. RDF technology is chiefly distin­ The burden of municipal waste repre­ guished from mass-burn technology by sents opportunity for anyone willing to far more front-end processing. First, the carry it-for a price. As communities refuse is sorted; if recyclable items have look for ways to get rid of their garbage, not already been removed, they are re­ investment firms and entrepreneurs covered from the waste stream, along scrutinize MSW to see how to wrest prof­ with nonburnable items. The remaining its from it. One way of turning trash into refuse is then shredded and weight­ cash is to remove and sell what can be classified. Finally, it is burned to generate recycled. Another kind of resource re­ electricity, leaving an ash residue for dis­ covery involves converting MSW into posal. The amount of electric power gen­ energy, a process utility companies find erated per ton of MSW is comparable for increasingly intriguing. RDF and mass-burned MSW. Although According to EPRI's Charles McGowin, mass burning currently accounts for a 10-year veteran researcher in this field, about three-quarters of the projects in today only about 5% of the nation's the United States, many experts believe waste stream is treated by about 100 re­ RDF will expand its one-quarter share source recovery plants; however, nearly significantly in the future. lectric utilities have a unique op­ a useful resource for those interested in Duggan points out that in treating " portunity to apply their exper­ getting into the business. MSW, communities face the largest capi­ tise in the design and operation Close cooperation among all partici­ tal investment they will ever make, and if of large generation facilities to pants was very important in expediting less capital is tied up, greater flexibility Ehelp their communities address the startup, as was vendor experience in se­ remains. This line of reasoning favors the waste disposal problem," believes Mc­ lecting process components. Difficulties retrofitting of boilers for RDF when the Gowin. Two means of active participa­ were encountered with refuse combus­ potential exists for doing so. Also, the tion have emerged. One is the conver­ tion and particulate emission control RDF option, which requires separating sion of existing plant boilers to burn RDF, systems during the first year of oper­ out certain materials from the waste either alone or in conjunction with coal ation; these are documented in the re­ stream, appeals strongly to those com­ or fuel oil. The other is the construction port, along with their largely successful mitted to recycling. of new, dedicated refuse-fired boilers to solutions. Since the late 1970s, TVA has provided supply steam to turbine generators The facility proved able to process guidance on political, technical, environ­ through mass burning. Because utilities refuse at its rated capacity of 200 tons a mental, and financial aspects of resource must, above all, be reliable power suppli­ day, and refuse volume and weight were recovery to more than 25 communities. ers, they should not place at risk their both reduced to close to the estimated The OPEC-sparked energy crisis created regular boilers but instead reserve, or 90%. The project was not without its considerable interest in cultivating alter­ dedicate, boilers for processing MSW­ problems, however. Boiler efficiency was native domestic energy sources, includ­ either by retrofitting unused existing only about 60-70%, rather than the 80% ing converting garbage into electric boilers or by acquiring new ones de­ specified by the manufacturer, although power. But even with high energy prices, signed for that purpose. it has improved since the initial evalu­ the economics were not that good. More than one-third of the nation's ation. And the estimated $5.2 million "Probably RDF should never have been MSW plants are sited in the Northeast, cost escalated to a final cost of more than looked at as a source of energy," believes where the landfill crisis is most acute, but $13 million. As a result of these factors, Duggan, "but simply as a way of getting facilities in all stages of development are the net revenues covered only operating rid of garbage." found in 41 states plus Puerto Rico. Min­ and maintenance costs, not deferred In 1976, when TVA evaluated RDF for nesota has the most existing plants (12), bond interest and depreciation charges. its coal-fired units, it found the option to followed by New York (11), Florida (10), Nevertheless, the initial operation was be economically unattractive. At that Virginia (9), and Texas (6). Pennsylvania deemed satisfactory and the outlook is time transportation and landfillwere rel­ has the most plants in an advanced plan­ optimistic. Justifiably so, as it turns out, atively cheap, and landfillwas still avail­ ning stage (12), followed by New Jersey for "everyone sees things as fine at the able and provoked little public oppo­ (10), New York (8), and Massachusetts plant," said its manager, Bill Garland, sition. Moreover, there were too many and Michigan (5 apiece). last summer. unsettling unknowns in the technologies The leading operators of mass-bum TVA has also been looking at RDF op­ required. facilities are Ogden Martin and Wheel­ tions. "The mass-burn approach was far TVA's reevaluation of the situation, abrator Technologies; other major play­ out front for a time," says Carroll Dug­ completed last summer, shows RDF to be ers in the waste-to-energy sweepstakes gan, director of the Waste Management technically feasible, thanks to a decade of are Westinghouse Electric, Browning­ Institute at TVA, "but now it seems to me continued development and experience. Ferris, Air Products, and Combustion that RDF is coming to the forefront. "Obviously, the front runner's bound to Engineering. When people look at the investment of hit the briers first," says Duggan. "His $50,000-$120,000 per ton of installed ca­ cries warn those behind from hitting Making it work at TVA pacity needed for a new mass-bum facil­ them, too." This increased technological Many utilities have already become in­ ity, they ask themselves, 'Why can't I expertise, changes in economic climate volved with MSW projects. EPRI collabo­ burn my waste in the existing power and risk assessment, and the decreasing rated with the Tennessee Valley Author­ plant, in which I've already invested? availability of landfill sites have all stimu­ ity in documenting the four years from Might the local utility be interested in lated utility interest in exploring RDF. planning to operation of a refuse-fired burning RDF in conjunction with coal? Considering the diverse and unpre­ mass-bum facility in Gallatiµ, Tennessee, Can it, with some modifications, work dictable factors in managing MSW­ that cogenerates steam for industrial cus­ more cheaply and without jeopardizing public policy, legislation, technology, tomers and electricity for sale to TVA. The the power plant?' Often, the answer is and human behavior-Duggan points to resulting two-volume report (CS-4164) is yes." a need for legislation that's realistic. "If

28 EPRI JOURNAL October/November 1988 Garbage: Everybody's Problem

Generation of solid waste is a fact of life in modern society. Many groups have a stake in the problem, but most have specific interests and concerns in how to approach it. Reconciling these special interests can make development of an effective waste management strategy an institutional nightmare.

Public Interest advocates can have all sorts of effectson garbage disposal-from lobbying for stricter hazardous substance leg­ islation to encouraging citizens to recycle to pressuring manufacturers for less-wasteful costs for collection service and minimal local � product packaging. Such groups are generally environmental impact in disposal strategy. 1� interested in doing the "right thing." However, This group can help solve the problem most the specific interests of different groups can effectively by participating in sorting and recy­ sometimes conflict-for example, advocates cling programs, which lower both the volume of lower cost for public services and those that of waste and the cost of getting rid of it. would have zero environmental impact in waste disposal at any cost.

Waste handlers, such as trash haulers or Equipment manufacturers may landfill operators, may want to participate in either sell resource recovery hardware or offer recycling or innovative resource recovery a packaged garbage management service projects if these activities fit in with overall based on their equipment-and they want to business goals. But questions concerning make a profit. Technical problems that cost, public liability, worker safety, and lack of plagued the relatively young MSW technolo­ experience with energy recovery technology gies a decade ago have been essentially make this group cautious. Waste handlers are solved, and a number of large manufacturing becoming more open to resource recovery concerns now do a thriving business in this options as landfill areas become scarcer and .=-f ield. With the landfill squeeze, the future more expensive. market for MSW processing equipment should continue to burgeon.

Electrlc utllltles have traditionally prided Government at the city or county levels themselves on public service, and their back­ generally has the final responsibility for man­ ground in combustion and generation makes aging garbage in an efficient, economical, and them well suited as partners in energy re­ environmentally acceptable manner. Local covery programs. However, utilities' primary governments sometimes take a hands-on role, concern must be providing reliable, affordable owning their own facilities and employing their electric service for the public at large. When own workers, but they often rely on private utilities agree to participate, specially modified contractors for collection and processing. boilers are generally dedicated for burning the hile local recycling programs are often spon­ garbage, and financial arrangements may sored as an effective approach for reducing specify that the cost of MSW combustion will waste volume, more involved and innovative not exceed that for burning conventional fuels. approaches to MSW can be financially risky for municipalities. If land disposal area is scarce, they may have little choice. The Solution: Recycling What's Recyclable ...

Over the years, recycling has progressed from customer returns of soda bottles to highly integrated curbside programs that deal with a broad range·of materials-cardboard, aluminum cans, plastic bottles, glass containers of all colors, and even used motor oil. Recycling is practiced by individuals, businesses, and industries, and collection receptacles are becoming familiar features of urban and suburban landscapes. ...And Burning What Isn't

Once mattresses, inflammables, toxics, and "white goods" such as stoves and refrigerators are removed from the waste stream, almost everything else can be burned safely, effectively, and productively. Emissions from both mass-burn and RDF combustion facilities are low, the process reduces the volume of material to be buried by as much as 90%, and electric power can be generated as a combustion by-product. it's unrealistic, the technology can't han­ waste management act that required that its design would be pleasing and its dle it. What's needed is a strong inter­ each county to come up with a master landscaping appropriate; that processing face between the players on the field and plan for MSW disposal. In response, would occur indoors to control noise, ro­ the spectators in the stands. We must densely populated Ramsay County and dents, odors, and dust; that enclosed bring the players to the table, give them sparsely populated Washington County trucks would be used to transport trash information, and be willing to make formed a joint powers board to investi­ to the facility and from it to the burning compromises." gate options. In the early 1980s the board facilities (in Red Wing and Mankato, 50 The "spectators" are nearly everyone. solicited bids for a mass-burn facility. and 90 miles away, respectively); that Certainly they include both taxpayers However, elected officials, eager to pro­ traffic would be carefully monitored to and ratepayers. And while a few people mote recycling, favored RDF (which re­ minimize impact; and that elaborate eschew electricity for an oil lamp and quires it); they also wanted a customer strategies had been devised to prevent some people don't pay taxes, just about that would accept 100% of the product. explosions and to control hazardous everyone generates waste. The United NSP already possessed facilities that waste (which NSP does not knowingly States, with 5% of the world's popu­ could be modified to burn the fuel; when accept but assumes responsibility for if lation, consumes 40% of its resources; it proposed a plan for retrofitting existing identified). much material is used only once and boilers to burn RDF, the bid was ac­ NSP appealed to ecological and envi­ then discarded. cepted. There was a strong incentive for ronmental concerns, comparing RDF Reducing waste is seen by TVA as one such an arrangement: nearly 40% of Min­ technology favorably with mass-burn key to managing it. Thus, in conjunction nesota's 110 landfills had less than five technology and noting the necessity for with Tennessee Valley universities, the years' capacity left, and RDF placed a far removing recyclable and noncombustible agency has designed an educational pro­ lighter burden on county credit than materials from the waste stream. And gram to promote "waste consciousness" funding a new mass-burn plant. the utility defused its detractors by iden­ in children in secondary grades through­ The plant seemed to have everything tifying potential problems itself and then out the valley. The program, called going for it. There was just one problem ensuring that precautions had been "Waste: A Hidden Resource," involves for the public: concern about where the taken to avoid them. NSP showed, point workbooks, videotapes, and teacher recycling, separation, and especially the by point, how its facility was similar to training. This fall it is being incorporated incineration and residue disposal would successful ones in Baltimore and Ames, into curricula in various ways aimed at occur. Iowa, and how it differed from other, un­ promoting awareness among our future successful ones elsewhere. citizen-consumers and modifying their uch concern is often expressed The effort paid off. There has been lit­ behavior. For example, students are by the term Nimby: not in my tle public opposition to the RDF plant shown how big boxes for small items backyard. Proponents of this since it became operational in July 1987. may be good at catching a customer's eye philosophy, "Nimbys," are The plant effectively reduces MSW: up to but are a bad use of precious resources. Sgaining and exerting strength in many 70% by weight is converted to RDF (90% "An integrated effort is what's environmentally sensitive areas. They by volume), and only 20% by weight is needed," believes Duggan. This would may be mellowing when it comes to gar­ left for landfill disposal. At the gener­ include waste reduction, source separa­ bage, however, perhaps recognizing that ating plants, emissions are low; dioxin tion, recycling what can be recycled, if they're not part of the solution, they're levels are less than one-tenth of the level treating what can be treated, and ending part of the problem. allowable on newer incinerators, and sul­ up with as little residue as possible that's NSP has been strikingly successful in fur dioxide emissions are less than one­ as innocuous as possible. neutralizing Nimbys. It helped that the fifth of those of coal-burning furnaces. Newport waste treatment plant didn't Encouraged by these results, NSP is Nimby-proofing RDF need a new site but could be built adja­ constructing a new RDF facility in Elk This is precisely the aim of Northern cent to an existing facility. Also, before River, Minnesota. United Power Associ­ States Power (NSP) at an MSW facility in NSP announced its intentions, it had ation, which already has a generating Newport, Minnesota, designed to treat carefully considered possible objections plant there, has contracted to burn 70% waste from two counties. In fact, it is the and proceeded to meet them. For exam­ of the RDF produced; it will also assume avowed aim of virtually every resource ple, it hoped to promote an amiable re­ 15% ownership of the RDF facility. recovery operation, and it is one that lationship with the neighborhood by Projected to cost $24.5 million, this facil­ unanimously wins public approval. pointing out that the facility would be in ity is similar to the Newport one, but its In 1982 Minnesota passed a solid- an industrial area away from residences; site is twice as large-35 acres-and it

32 EPRI JOURNAL October/November 1988 Energy Recovery on the Rise Mass-Burn Entrepreneurship While the degree of rampup varies with the esti­ mator, all parties see a dramatic increase in waste-to-energy conversion in the coming de­ cades. Combustion Engineering's figures, shown here, project that as much as 40% of heelabrator Technologies, a the potential for jointly developing a the nation's MSW will be burned for electricity mass-burn leader based in Dan­ mass-burn facility with Kansas City by the turn of the century. Resource Marketing vers,W Massachusetts, has eight facili­ Power & Light. International estimates the number at 29% by ties in operation, serving 5 million Although proponents of RDF tech­ 1991, led by the Northeast, which is expected to people; the facilities treat 4.5 million nology may disagree, Wheelabrator be converting about two-thirds of its garbage by tons of refuse annually and produce spokesman David Tooley believes that year. 325 MW daily. With three more facili­ that "the most successful of the re­ ties under construction and 12 under source recovery plants are those that development, the company plans to mass burn. RDF plants have front-end double its capacity by 1991. processes. There's not much gained Havingpioneered the country's first by the shredding; and the more mov­ privately funded mass-burn plant in ing parts the more problems." Items 1975 at a landfill north of Boston, the such as nylon stockings can jam mov­ 40% of total MSW company now has nearly 30 plant­ ing parts. Tooley also points to an years of experience with mass-burn Achilles' heel of shredding-the po­ technology. Some of its inventions are tential for explosion if sparks ignite in their second or third generation . dust-and notes that RDF facilities are What Wheelabrator has learned is built with blow-off roofs. Tooley em­ reflected in its present policy: take phasizes that while mass burning control of the entire process "and does not demand recycling, it's not in­ .8 � make sure it's done right," according compatible with it, although it's usu­ 0 0 s to Bill Keightley, managing director. ally left to municipalities to sort out 0 Q) This includes total design of the facili­ recyclable and hazardous materials. "O 100 2000 cii Q) > VJ 0 VJ <.) ties and equipment. "We get what we Just how successful are mass-burn Q) Q) <.) want, whereas others have to go for facilities? All those constructed by 0 >- a:: 0) the low bidder." Wheelabrator also Wheelabrator are still operating. Last Q) cii C en w prefers to control landfill for the resi­ year the company did a $1 billion busi­ � due produced by mass-burning MSW. ness, earning $25 million . Most of the Although it delivers residue to some earnings came from getting rid of gar­ municipalities, Wheelabrator believes bage, not producing power. For exam­

that in the future it will increasingly ple, in the 45-MW Millbury plant, handle the residue. The company is enough steam was produced to save also becoming involved at the front about $11 million in fuel oil, but end of the process: this summer, in $26 million was generated by fees Newton, Massachusetts, it began from processing municipalities' ref­ curbside collection of garbage, which use. Despite the very high capital it burns in its Millbury plant. outlay for mass-burn facilities, this Even as Wheelabrator pursues ver­ option is perceived as economically tical integration of its operations, it is competitive in many communities,

0 0 0 also extending itself laterally. The particularly where landfill is scarce or a:, Ol 0 Ol 0 C\J company recently agreed to explore nonexistent. D

Source: World Wa stes, June 1966.

EPRI JOURNAL October/November 1988 33 Options for Energy Recovery

Mass burning of refuse is a relatively straightforward process, but it must be done in a facility designed for the nonuniform, slow-burning material. Raw garbage is loaded from a storage pit onto moving grates that feed it slowly through a specially designed furnace. Hot gases from the burning refuse generate steam that can be passed through a standard turbine generator for electricity production. Combustion gases from mass burning continue through scrubbers and particulate removal systems to ensure environmental compliance. The furnace ash can either be buried directly in landfill or be processed to recover metals and other unburnables.

Stack

Steam to turbine generator

Scrubber

Particulate removal system (baghouse)

. i ·::· Jt�>:.-� \\;:, Ash to Waste l· landfill

Refuse-derived fuel, or RDF, can be burned in standard utility boilers with a minimum of modification; however, turning raw refuse into RDF is an involved process in itself. The waste feed is first moved through a flail mill, where hammers break it into small pieces, and a magnetic separator removes ferrous metals for recycling. The remaining waste is separated by size and weight with disk screens and air classifiers. Much of the heavier material is aluminum, which can also be recycled, while the lighter fraction contains most of the combustible material. This light, uniform fluff-RDF-is compacted and trucked to the utility for burning. The small portion of unburnable, nonmetal waste is disposed of in landfill.

Primary Magnetic disk Air Secondary separator screen classifier shredder 6 �[ ;il;$.��{ ;W�<1.- ---. _\/_� Waste Secondary disk Air screen classifier D CJ �-D• Compactor will process half again as much MSW, lect plastic bottles and carpets before lieves that over an eight- to 10-year pe­ 1500 tons a day from five counties. they enter the waste stream. riod it would be cheaper for the city of NSF's Newport operation has been a As for profitability, there's a potential Pensacola to let Gulf burn its garbage model of effective planning and cooper­ for it, but it's not yet being realized. Rate than to use any other vendor. (Under the ation. But like many facilities, both mass commissions place ceilings tied to the proposal, ash disposal is left to counties.) burn and RDF, the project has had its consumer price index on profits utilities Lacking a landfill site, Pensacola now share of technical problems. A transfer may make from supplying power, but dumps its trash in Santa Rosa County; its load-out line initially moved too slowly RDF generation is not regulated. "We contract expires in 1993, however, and is for peak times; the operation was hope ultimately to make better than a reg­ unlikely to be renewed. Even though speeded up by transferring nonburnable ulated rate of return," says Barb Braun Santa Rosa is still fairly rural, landfill items directly to a truck and taking them Halverson, NSF media representative. costs are up and there's always the to landfill. Hammers in the flail mill had As with mass-burn plants, NSF Nimby factor. to be changed because the original mod­ charges tipping fees-$41.50 a ton in Regarding the mass-burn proposal, no els wore out too quickly. Another prob­ 1988-and charges customers for power. technical problems are anticipated, fi­ lem discoverable only in operation was Although the counties issued bonds to nancing has been worked out, and the that the MSW moisture content is lower build the plant and have guaranteed to considerable media attention has been than the specifications had assumed and provide it with a certain amount and mostly positive. With Gulf guaranteeing than the equipment is designed for, a dif­ quality of MSW, NSF bears the brunt of to have a mass-burn plant operational 42 ficulty still being addressed. And for a the financial risk. It backed the bonds months after receipt of the contract (al­ while there were too many nonprocess­ and this December begins its payoff to lowing 24 months for acquiring the nec­ ible items-mattresses, rugs, "white retire them. But, as Story affirms, "No­ essary permits), the ball is now in the goods" (e.g., refrigerators), and hazard­ body wants NSF to fail. If it does, every­ court of the municipal players to reach a ous wastes-showing up at the plant. body's out." It's part of Story's job to see decision by next summer. While the plant has the right to refuse that it doesn't, and he is sanguine about The growing awareness of the need for them, doing so requires better sorting success. "Cooperation between NSF and an integrated approach to resource re­ by both the plant and county receiving the counties is second to none," he ex­ covery has sparked a conference to be stations. plains, "and the efficiency just keeps get­ held this fall in Washington, D.C. ting better and better." "Waste-to-Energy '88: The Integrated ore dramatic have been two Story notes the gratifying response at Market," the fourth symposium spon­ fires. One in May (unrelated various government levels to the need sored by McGraw-Hill trade publications to the RDF process) shut for boosting efficiency further and ad­ on resource recovery, will assemble key down part of the transfer sys­ dressing the legitimate concerns of all players to explore how various compo­ temM and resulted in a one-day outage. parties. For example, the state recently nents of solid-waste management can be Another, two weeks later, was caused by passed a law mandating that beginning optimally integrated. waste processing in the presence of very in 1990 all yard waste be picked up sepa­ Equations for solving MSW disposal high temperatures. This time the system rately; a study is already under way on are complex, because the variables are in­ was down for three days. It was discov­ composting yard waste plus the 7500 terdependent and are unique to each ered that the water deluge system had tons a month of RDF residue of heavy situation. Instead of viewing alternative not been properly placed, and it has been organic matter. MSW options as competitors, resource adjusted. NSF and the municipality are recovery researchers and managers in­ confident that operations to date have Interest on the rise creasingly see the need for cooperation. flushed out any crucial bugs in the sys­ Motives similar to NSF's-the desire for The problem with garbage is not that tem. "In fact," says Patrick Story, the public service and the hope of profit­ there's too little, but too much-plenty counties' projects manager, "the plant is ability-are causing other utilities to look for everyone. Everyone has a part to beautifully designed." into the possibility of converting waste play, from reducing waste to disposing of Problems also provide opportunities. into energy. Among them is Florida's it properly. For utilities, it is an oppor­ A number of entrepreneurs have tech­ Gulf Power, which is proposing a mass­ tunity fraught with challenge. • niques for recycling plastics into strong, burn facility for MSW. With the state low-cost material usable by the auto­ pushing hard via tax incentives and dis­ This article was written by Anne Knight. science writer. Te ch­ mobile industry, and they are exploring incentives to stop landfill, Gulf's Senior nical background information was provided by Charles McGowin, Coal Combustion Systems Division. ways to contract with the counties to col- Project Engineer Ralph Czepluch be-

EPRI JOURNAL October/November 1988 35 performance and properties of flawed wide distribution to EPRI member util­ piping. ities. They include results that have been TECH Now, after more than three years of widely applied in both nuclear and fossil these investigations, the effort is begin­ fuel plants and will form the basis for ning to produce new options and cost acceptance criteria now being prepared TRANSFER savings for utilities. After evaluating re­ by an ASME working group. sults from EPRI-sponsored research, the In related work, the NRC Office of Nu­ NEWS main committee of the ASME Boiler and clear Regulatory Research, working with Pressure Vessel Code voted this summer EPRI, has organized an international to accept new evaluation and acceptance pipe-testing program to demonstrate the criteria for flaws in carbon steel piping. margins of safety in flawed piping sub­ This change in the ASME code, which ject to seismic loads. Other members of will help utilities avoid pipe replace­ the International Pipe Integrity Research ment in many situations, complements Group include Canada, the United King­ evaluation procedures for flawed stain­ dom, France, Japan, the Republic of less steel piping, also developed by China, Switzerland, and Sweden. In EPRI, which were incorporated into the work under way, researchers are testing code in 1985. The recent work on carbon flawed stainless and carbon steel pipe steel piping was performed by the ASME sections and weldments under loads that Task Group on Piping Flaw Evaluation, simulate seismic stresses. Preliminary

chaired by Douglas Norris of EPRI's Nu­ results indicate that many configura­ clear Power Division. tions of conventional piping may be New acceptance criteria for piping more resistant to fracture than pre­ thinned by erosion-corrosion are also viously believed. Degraded Piping Research now available in two new reports. These This three-year program of piping tests Gives Utilities New Options include a summary report that is gener­ is similar in structure to work on un­ uclear utilities must periodically in­ ally available (NP-5911M) and a more cracked piping that has resulted in relax­ Nspect the reactor coolant pressure detailed report for EPRI members (NP- ation of design requirements in Section boundary to determine the integrity of 5911SP). These documents update an III of the ASME Code. Two ASME code piping systems subject to flaws caused earlier draft-for-comment version given cases were passed as a result of this pre­ by such mechanisms as erosion-corrosion l I vious work, providing for about 20% and thermal fatigue. Engineers have higher allowable stresses on piping. The used acceptance standards in the Boiler research has key importance for utilities and Pressure Vessel Code of the Ameri­ because it lays the groundwork for possi­ can Society of Mechanical Engineers bly reducing the number of costly snub­ (ASME) to analyze flaws in carbon steel bers and pipe supports used to minimize piping and determine whether flawed stress on piping. pipe could be safely returned to service. "Even higher allowable stresses will be In cases where flawsexceeded 10% of the pursued after the research is completed wall thickness, however, no evaluation early in 1989," says Sam Tagart, technical standards or procedures existed, even specialist in EPRl's Component Reliability though many of these flawed pipes re­ Program. "Although NRC has not yet tained safety margins equal to the origi­ endorsed these code cases, the research nal design. Utilities were thus sometimes results clearly show that piping is ex­ required to undertake costly pipe re­ tremely resistant to seismic loading and placement when it was not justified that eventually most piping snubbers can by changes in safety margins. EPRI has be eliminated." • EPRI Contacts: Sam sought to remedy this situation in an on­ Tagart, (415) 855-2793, and Douglas Norris, going program of R&D dealing with the (415) 855-2791

36 EPRI JOURNAL October/November 1988 Life Extension for Plant on making these decisions, utilities can fits of PRAs warranted the development Electrical Equipment refer to a new report, Fabric Filters fo r the costs, some reported considerably larger y 1995 one-quarter of U.S. coal-fired Electric Utility Industry, Volumes 1 and 2 benefits. Utilities that performed PRAs B plants and one-half of oil- and gas­ (CS-5161). primarily to satisfy NRC requirements fired plants will be more than 30 years Volume 1 of the report provides an in­ achieved their original objectives, but old, creating an increased need among troduction and technical overview for with few subsequent benefits. For oth­ utilities for a systematic approach to life baghouse applications in coal-fired util­ ers, particularly those using PRAs for extension. To develop such an approach ity boilers. This information will help purposes such as identification of more for electrical equipment used in fossil utility engineers design more-effective cost-effective design alternatives and fuel power plants, utilities can turn to a systems, improve specifications for pur­ procedures, benefits have continued to new report, Generic Guidelines for the Life chases or modifications, and develop accrue. Extension of Plant Electrical Equipment (EL- procedures to reduce operating costs. The report cites tangible benefits that 5885). Volume 2, a guide to sonic cleaning of specific utilities have gained from their The report, which complements earlier filter bags, describes the cost-effective­ PRA programs and identifies factors that generic guidelines covering major me­ ness of sonic horns and their potential for had strong impacts on program success. chanical components in power plants increasing the efficiency of reverse-gas­ These factors include the experience and (CS-4778), begins by addressing such is­ cleaned and shake-deflate-cleaned bag­ credibility of program personnel, the sues as scheduling and data acquisition houses. This volume also provides prac­ production of detailed plant-specific for a life assessment and extension pro­ tical guidelines on selecting, installing, models, and advocacy on the part of se­ gram. The next section introduces a pro­ testing, and operating sonic horns. nior management. • EPRI Contact: John cedure for assessing equipment life on The two volumes are part of a planned Gaertner, (415) 855-2933 the basis of historical plant data, visual multivolume series that will cover design inspection and examination, monitoring, considerations, bags and fabrics, fluegas CHANGES AT EPRI and diagnostic testing. A detailed re­ dynamics, reverse-gas cleaning, shake­ view of 11 major electrical equipment deflate cleaning, pulse-jet cleaning, com­ The following changes have been an­ nounced that will affect future contact systems follows, covering generators bined S02 collection, and operation and and exciters, transformers, electric mo­ maintenance. • EPRI Contact: Wa lter with EPRI staff members: tors, switchgear, motor control centers, Piulle, (415) 855-2470 o In October four groups-the Ad­ power and control cables, bus sys­ vanced Power Systems Division, Coal tems, protective and auxiliary relays, bat­ Combustion Systems Division, Plant teries, cathodic protection systems, and Utilities and Probabilistic Electrical Systems Rotating Machinery grounding systems. The final section Risk Assessment Program, and Materials Support Pro­ outlines a plan for using life assessment uclear utilities are making in­ gram-were merged under Vice Pres­ data to schedule the refurbishment or re­ Ncreased use of probabilistic risk as­ ident Kurt Yeager into a new Gen­ placement of equipment. sessments (PRAs) to analyze risks and eration and Storage Division. The By following the general method and make informed decisions on plant modi­ change is expected to streamline oper­ detailed procedures presented in this fications. Now utilities can turn to a new ations and improve member access to guideline, utilities with life extension report, The Practical Application of Prob­ technical resources. The new divi­ programs can make cost-effective deci­ abilistic Risk Assessment (NP-5664), to as­ sional organization will be reflected in sions about electrical equipment. • sess the factors affecting the success of the next issue of the EPRJ Journal. EPRI Contact: Jan Stein, (415) 855-2390 these efforts. o Vice President Fritz Kalhammer has In compiling the report, EPRI or­ announced that as of early 1989, his ganized interviews with more than 50 in­ Energy Management and Utilization A Guide to Fabric Filters dividuals from 10 nuclear utilities to pro­ Division will be known as the Cus­ tilities using fabric filter baghouses vide information on what was done, tomer Systems Division. The name on coal-fired power plants face what benefits the utility received, and change has been instituted to better manyU different decisions related to bag­ what program characteristics enhanced reflect the industry's increasing focus house design and operations and peri­ or inhibited success. Although all the on its customers. odic cleaning of filter bags. For guidance utility participants stated that the bene-

EPRI JOURNAL October/November 1988 37 RESEARCH UPDATE

Nuclear Fuel Behavior FREY: A Fuel Rod Evaluation Code by Ching-Ju Lin, Nuclear Power Division

uclear fuel technology has advanced nomic impact of plant derating and pro- meet their fuel analysis needs. FREY applies N significantly in the last decade as a longed outages, such as those caused by to LWR fuels and can be specialized to result of extensive R&D efforts undertaken operational events in which fuel integrity specific BWR or PWR fuels by means of an by both industry and government. As a par- may be affected, would be of equal or even extensive array of user options. This flex- ticipant in these efforts, EPRI has contrib­ greater benefit to nuclear power plant own- ibility will save utilities resources in code uted technical and financial support to do­ ers. The FREY code, with its two-dimensional maintenance and quality assurance costs. mestic and international fuel projects. The mechanistic modeling for both (r,z) and (r,O) Plant support tool analysis and computer modeling of fuel be­ geometries, provides the analytic means to havior has been an important part of EPRI diagnose fuel problems associated with Generic operational events that affect fuel activities. One result is FREY, a key to tran­ power maneuvers and operational events to response are generally considered in ad­ sient fuel behavior analysis. help develop operational remedies. vance and accounted for either in the fuel FREY is a best-estimate code that em- A complete reload licensing analysis in- design or in plant operating procedures. Al- ploys two-dimensional finite-element formu- eludes the analysis of design basis events though they do not compromise the safety lation with fully coupled thermal-mechanical (DBEs) for which fuel limits have been of the reactor if they occur, some of the modeling. It can analyze fuel behavior un- specified. As an advanced and detailed operational events, such as a sudden der both steady-state and rapid-transient fuel behavior code, FREY can help utilities change of core coolant conditions or local conditions. Utility fuel analysts can use FREY for fuel behavior evaluation, plant support, and fuel reload licensing analyses. Under normal conditions, reactor fuel is ABSTRACT Over the past several years, EPRI has been spon- subjected to power maneuvers dictated by soring th e development of the FREY code for evaluations of LWR fuel many operational requirements, which in­ clude reactor control procedures, load fol­ rod behavior. The code follows mechanistic modeling approach lowing, and reactor shutdowns and start­ a ups. In the early years of nuclear fuel and utilizes up-to-date physical and material models that are well experience, such power maneuvers had caused fuel failures that were attributed known in the technical community. Th e unique characteristics of mainly to a phenomenon known as pellet- clad interaction (PCI). The fission gas in fuel FREY make it a suitable tool for transient fuel analysis in reload rods could then escape through the failed cladding, causing an increase in off-gas licensing, plant support, and diagnostic evaluations of problems level, thereby impacting plant availability. related to fuel behavior. Extensive verification and validation analy- During the past decade, efforts on the part of both industry and government organiza­ ses have been performed using wide range of test reactor tran­ tions directed at the development of im­ a proved nuclear fuel utilization have resulted sient experiments, as well as power reactor fuel performance data. in an impressive record of fuel reliability. The primary motivation for these efforts FREY is well documented and is now being tested by utility work- has been the significant economic incen- a tives associated with reduced fuel cycle ing group. Its formal release is planned in the very near fu ture. costs, increased reactor availability, and operational flexibility. Minimizing the eco-

38 EPRI JOURNAL October/November 1988 power, could cause local excessive heat operating conditions and were able to pro­ Figure 2 FREY'S capability to analyze DBEs load on the fuel. Induced failure is a possi- pose remedies for mitigating their effects. for reload licensing has been demonstrated through simulation of experiments under simi­ ble consequence of the mechanical inter- Figure 1 shows the results of this analysis, lar but far more severe conditions. This figure action of fuel pellet and cladding. in which the effects on power are quantified shows the cladding temperature calculated by Such events may result in derating of as a function of ramp rates. With such a FREY versus test data of a flow reduction ex­ periment conducted in a test reactor. the reactor, followed by time-consuming in- figure and worst-case assumptions on de­ spections for possible fuel damage during feet size, one can determine operating plant outages. With its mechanistic mod- power regimes that are unaffected by this - FREY eling, the FREY code can provide realistic phenomenon. • Te st data 1600 estimates of the fuel condition following In recent years, nuclear fuel manufac­ such events. Moreover, FREY provides the turers have been seeking greater economy analytic means to develop a fuel precondi- for nuclear fuel utilization through new fuel � 1400 tioning procedure to avoid fuel damage on design, longer fuel cycles, and more conve­ al subsequent resumption of power operation. nient refueling schedules. These changes a; E In this application, the FREY code becomes will impose new requirements on fuel per­ � 1200 an operation support tool for diagnosing formance, and the development of new, fuel problems and developing operational more detailed models will be needed. remedies. FREY's modular structure and the mecha- 1000 1l FREY can also be used to diagnose the nistic modeling approach will provide users phenomenon of localized waterside clad- with an easy transition and extrapolation to ding corrosion, which occurs in certain re­ new applications. 800 actor environments. FREY's (r,O) two-dimen­ sional finite-element formulation allows the Fuel reload licensing tool close simulation of such an asymmetric Established procedures for licensing fuel phenomenon. Utility engineers used FREY to reloads require that each licensee demon­ Distance From Bottom of Fuel Stack (m) analyze locally corroded rods under various strate that the new fuel reload or proposed operating procedure will not violate previ­ ously established limits. A reload analysis includes performing and/or reviewing both Failure power = 262.5 W/cm steady-state,* transient, and accident anal­ 80 yses. The transient and accident analyses include a broad spectrum of design basis

"' events for which acceptable fuel limits have "'Q) been specified and result in operational lim­ ti 70 £ its for the reactor plant being analyzed. In "' some cases, such as plant changes that u 0 affect the fuel limits, it may be necessary to OS: use a fuel transient code such as FREY to � 60 0 demonstrate the acceptability of these Q) operational limits. FREY's ability to analyze these DBEs is 50 demonstrated by analysis of experiments simulating three representative events. These transients, conducted in test reac­ tors. are frequently much more severe than ------40 � -�� --�- --�_ -� -�_ --��---�----�-- � those in the power reactors if they occur. 0 0.1 0_2 0 3 0.4 0 5 0_6 0_7 0_5 0_9 Analyzing such transient experiments is Ramp Rate (W/cm-min) thus a good test of the FREY code. Figure 1 FREY is a tool for plant operational support. The locally corroded fuel rods were analyzed for various combinations of defect size, power, and ramp rates. The operating power regimes that are unaffected by the localized waterside corrosion phenomenon are to the left of *The ESCORE code has been developed by EPRI the failure power curves. to perform the steady-state reload fuel analysis.

EPRI JOURNAL October/November 1988 39 One class of DBEs is caused by a primary in the fuel and the peak cladding tempera­ Figure 3 FREY's prediction of fuel clad swell­ pump malfunction that reduces coolant flow ture. Comparison of the results of these ex­ ing during a LOCA experiment compared with test results. so that the coolant does not efficiently trans­ periments and FREY calculations shows that port the thermal energy generated by the the calculated temperatures are higher by Os 40 s Failure fuel. Figure 2 presents FREY's predictions of about 13%. The stored energy calculated the peak outer clad temperature and com­ by FREY is 197 cal/g, compared with the pares them with test results of such an ex­ experimental value of 185 cal/g. Consider­ perimental transient. Considering the com­ ing the uncertainties stated above, these re­ plexity of the physical phenomena involved sults are in reasonably good agreement in transient fuel behavior and the many with the measured data. sources of uncertainties in the experimental Under current fuel reload licensing pro­ measurements and interpretation of the cedures, a loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA) data, the differences between FREY calcu­ is handled through special procedures. lated and experimental values are within The three phases of a LOCA are blowdown, expectations. heatup, and reflood. During the blowdown Another, and a more severe, class of tran­ phase, the cladding may be subjected to sients that FREY is designed to handle is the heating rates ranging from 5°C to 100°c per hypothetical inadvertent rod ejection (or rod second, depending on the type of reactor drop) accident, in which local power spikes and the characteristics of the accident. As a occur in fuel rods that are directly affected result of this rapid heating, the internal pres­ by displacement of the control rod. The sure induces cladding strains of the order of magnitude of the power spike could reach 30-100%. As a problem in thermomechani­ significantly higher levels than the fuel rod's cal analysis, this type of response requires linear power rating in a fraction of a second. detailed constitutive modeling and compu­ Because of the short duration of the power tational efficiency. FREY's simulation of this - FREY prediction ---- Measurements spike, the fuel thermal response lags be- type of transient is illustrated in Figure 3, hind and the fuel temperature remains rela- which shows close agreement with experi- tively low, in most cases several hundred mental measurements. benchmarked. FREY is capable of analyzing degrees below melting. The specified ac- These three examples give a represen- the entire spectrum of hypothetical tran­ ceptable design limits for this type of tran- tative cross section of reactor transients sients that make up the DBEs used in reload sient are given in terms of the stored energy for which FREY's capabilities have been licensing.

Fossil Fuel Generation Systems Steam-Injected Gas Turbines Versus Combined Cycles by Art Cohn, Advanced Power Systems Division

team-injected gas turbine (SIGT) power MW comes closest to the unit size of interest the turbine exhaust. The combustion gases plants have reached the stage of com­ to utilities. The emerging SIGT technology are passed through the HRSG to heat pres­ mercialS availability. A number of SIGT pack­ is a potential competitor to the more es- surized water to superheated steam. In the ages in the range of 1-50 MW are now being tablished combined-cycle technology for SIGT system, however, this steam is injected marketed, and there are at least 10 installa­ power plant applications. back into the gas turbine itself-rather than tions operated by nonutility cogenerators in into a separate steam turbine, as in the SIGT technology the United States. These include three ap­ combined-cycle system. plications of the General Electric LMSOOO Like a combined-cycle system, a steam-in­ Most ofthe steam is injected into the com­ gas turbine, which has the best heat rate of jected gas turbine system has a heat recov­ bustor region of the gas turbine, where it is the offered steam-injected units and at 50 ery steam generator (HRSG) downstream of mixed with the combustor air and heated up

40 EPRI JOURNAL October/November 1988 standard combined cycles at a series of power levels. The base case, the one of ABSTRACT Steam-injected gas turbine systems are now com- most interest to Jersey Central, involved the 350- to 400-MW category. This pitted a plant mercially available for power plant applications. Th ese systems, with seven LM5ooo steam-injected units against a standard combined-cycle plant which use turbine exhaust gases to produce steam for injection with three General Electric MS7001E gas tur­ bines. For further comparison, a combined back into the gas turbine, are a potential competitor to combined­ cycle using two of the more advanced Gen­ eral Electric MS7001F gas turbines was also cycle systems. Under EPRI sponsorship, Jersey Central Power & considered. Capital cost and heat rate quotes were Light has conducted site-specific comparative analysis of the two a obtained from equipment vendors by Sar­ gent & Lundy, the project subcontractor. technologies. The study concluded that for power plants of about Three different vendors supplied quotes for 150 MW or greater, combined-cycle systems are preferable, primar­ the LM5000-based plants. Sargent & Lundy also designed the plant layouts. Nonreheat ily because of heat rate and capital cost. Steam-injected systems combined cycles were used, as specified by Jersey Central. On the basis of the per­ appear to be competitive option for small applications ( MW) formance quotes, the overall fixed and vari­ a -50 able costs were calculated by using the and also meritconsiderat ion for energy parks th at produce steam as EPRl-developed GATE program. As Table 1 indicates, in the large, 350- wellas electricpo wer. Thestudy's conclusions have been reviewed 400-MW category, the combined cycles had considerably lower fixed costs and lower and unanimously endorsed by a panel of engineering executives variable costs than the s1GT plant. Even though they included steam turbine, con­ from a wide range of utilities. denser, and cooling tower equipment, the combined-cycle plants had the capital cost advantage. The main factor here was the high cost of the LM5000 steam-injected unit: to the turbine inlet temperature. Some most powerful of the available units and it cost about twice as much, on a per kW lower-pressure steam can be injected hence the most logical candidate for utility basis, as the heavy-duty units used in the downstream into the turbine spools. SIGT use. combined-cycle plants. In each case the power plants do not require steam turbines, heat rate of the combined cycles was signif­ condensers, or cooling towers. However, Comparative analysis: icantly better than that of the steam-injected cost and heat rate results although the injected steam is heated to the system. The other factors evaluated­ turbine inlet temperature, its expansion ratio Jersey Central Power & Light, under con­ environmental compatibility (discussed be­ is limited to that of the turbine section, and tract to EPRI, has recently completed a low), operating flexibility, and potential the quantity of steam is limited by the tur- technical assessment comparing LM5000 availability-slightly favored the SIGT plant. bine's swallowing area. steam-injected units with combined-cycle However, they were overwhelmed by the The optimal pressure ratio for a gas tur- units for specific power plant applications. large economic advantage of the com­ bine in a combined cycle is in the 12-15 The study was made for two of the utility's bined-cycle plants. range. For the steam-injected gas turbine, generating stations-the Gilbert station, lo­ For the 350-400-MW power plant, the an early EPRI study showed the optimal ratio cated inland on the Delaware River, and the combined-cycle and steam-injected op­ to be much higher-above 20. The General Forked River station, located on an inlet of tions differed distinctly in terms of gas tur­ Electric LM5000, an aircraft derivative, has a the Atlantic Ocean. For each technology at bine capacity and the number of turbines pressure ratio of -30 and a high turbine each site, the study evaluated fixed costs required. Therefore, the researchers also inlet temperature, features that make it ex- and operating costs, environmental com­ made a comparison based on gas turbines cellent for conversion to steam injection. patibility, and power plant flexibility. of more nearly equal size. In this case the Moreover, with an output of -50 MW, it is the The SIGT power plant was compared with plants were about 150 MW. An SIGT plant

EPRI JOURNAL October/November 1988 41 clusions for the Jersey Central sites-that Table 1 is, that the combined-cycle option would be COMPARISON OF STEAM-INJECTED GAS TURBINE POWER PLANTS AND COMBINED-CYCLE POWER PLANTS superior at both 350-400 MW and 150 MW. More important, the panel concluded that Large Plant Midsize Plant Small Plant these findings would apply throughout the Standard Advanced industry for pure power stations larger than SIGT SIGT SIGT cc cc cc cc about 50 MW. Output (MW) 349 363 426 149 167 49 55 For plants of about 50 MW or smaller, the Capital cost ($/kW) 817 585 536 962 875 1237 1247 panel felt that the operating complexity of Capital charge ($/kWyr) 119 85 78 139 127 179 181 the combined-cycle steam turbine (and its Heat rate (Btu/kWh) 9115 8230 7710 9150 8430 9200 8590 demands on personnel time) would out­ Levelized fuel cost ($/kWh) 0.056 0.050 0.047 0.056 0.052 0.056 0.053 weigh the fuel savings of that option; the Levelized O&M cost ($/kWh) members concluded that they would proba­ 3500 h/yr 0.012 0.011 0.010 0.018 0.017 0.033 0.033 bly choose the steam-injected system for 5000 h/yr 0.010 0.008 0.008 0.013 0.013 0.024 0.025 this application. However, both the SIGT and 7000 h/yr 0.008 0.007 0.007 0.011 0.010 0.018 0.019 combined-cycle plants of this size would Levelized total cost ($/kWh) have much higher costs than the larger 3500 h/yr 0.102 0.086 0.079 0.114 0.105 0.140 0.137 combined cycles, and the panel agreed 5000 h/yr 0.089 0.076 0.071 0.097 0.090 0.116 0.113 that a plant of 50 MW would be an atypical 7000 h/yr 0.081 0.070 0.065 0.087 0.080 0.100 0.098 generation addition. Nonlevelized total cost ($/kWh) The panel recommended that further 3500 h/yr 0.064 0.051 0.047 0.073 0.067 0.094 0.093 studies be conducted to assess advanced 5000 h/yr 0.053 0.042 0.039 0.058 0.054 0.073 0.072 steam-injected units not yet on the market 7000 h/yr 0.045 0.037 0.034 0.049 0.046 0.060 0.059 and to examine a case study involving both steam and electricity demand. Note: The analysis assumed a fuel cost of $2.50 per million Btu, a fuel levelizing factor of 2.45, and an O&M levelizing factor of 1.68. Although the -50-MW steam-injected unit appeared to be competitive, utility gener­ ation expansion plans typically do not call with three LM5000 units was compared with At this size, the SIGT plant had one LM5000 for plants this small. Thus the possibilities a combined-cycle plant built around three unit and the combined-cycle plant had one for utility application of SIGT technology General Electric MS6001 gas turbines. The MS6001 unit. Since the steam plant of the seem limited at this time. However, utilities combined-cycle system had three HRSGs combined-cycle system was only about 15 with total heat and power applications or (one for each gas turbine) and one steam MW, its contribution in terms of efficiency with cogeneration subsidiaries would be turbine. and capital cost was expected to suffer. advised to consider steam-injected units for In this midsize category, the SIGT plant Hence it seemed possible that the steam- small installations serving both steam and again had both a higher capital cost and a injected system would be competitive in this electricity demand. higher heat rate (Table 1), resulting in higher range. This was found to be the case. The Environmental factors fixed and variable costs. Although the dif­ combined-cycle plant had a somewhat bet­ ferences between the two options were ter full-power heat rate, but the SIGT plant Environmental compatibility was extensively smaller than in the 350-400-MW case, they had a slightly lower capital cost (Table1) ; as investigated, since this has been an area of were large enough to establish the com­ a result, the overall economics of the op­ uncertainty concerning the steam-injected bined-cycle plant as preferable. It should tions were about equal. cycle. The evaluation focused on two fac­ be noted that on a per kW basis, the tors-plume incursion and water usage. Utility panel review combined-cycle costs were considerably In general, the impact of the SIGT stack greater for the 150-MW size than for the The results of the comparative assessment plume was found to be smaller than the 350-400-MW size. Thus, the large com­ were reviewed by a panel of engineering combined impact of the two plumes con­ bined-cycle plant offers considerable sav­ executives from Florida Power Corp., Flor­ nected with combined-cycle technology, ings over the midsize one. ida Power & Light, the Salt River Project, the stack plume and the cooling tower Even though Jersey Central was not inter- Texas Utilities, Green Mountain Power, the plume. Because of differences in plume ested in any smaller-sized power plants, the Southern Company, and Northeast Utilities. buoyancy, specific geographical features project did compare plants of about 50 MW. The panel concurred with the study's con- could in some cases be more affected by

42 EPRI JOURNAL October/November 1988 an SIGT plant plume than by combined- pacity of the combined-cycle units. The rate. The cost of removing combustion im­ cycle plumes. However, the Jersey Central blowdown impurity and disposal require- purities from the water depends on the fuel sites were not adversely affected by this ment of the steam-injected units was also burned; it is expected to be small for natural phenomenon. five times as high, but this was not found to gas, but it could be considerable for distil­ The total water use of the steam-injected cause any licensing problems. late No. 2 oil. At any rate, such a water re­ units was only about 70% of the cooling Recovering water from the stack could covery feature should be considered for tower and boiler makeup requirements of help meet the requirements of steam­ arid locations, where the recovered water the combined-cycle units. However, since injected units for high-quality water. A spe­ could be put back into the water table if it all the water for the steam-injected units had cial study in this project found that essen­ was not processed for reuse. For the New to be processed to boiler quality, they re- tially complete water recovery could be Jersey plant sites, the extra costs for water quired about five times the high-quality- accomplished with about an 11% increase recovery would not be offset by reduced water and demineralization processing ca- in capital cost and a 1.2% increase in heat water makeup costs.

Overhead Transmission New Responses to Transmission System Challenges by James Hall, Electrical Systems Division

esigning transmission lines to meet to­ comfort in the vicinity of lines and their effect creased quite easily. Line design adequacy D day's utility requirements involves a on radio and television reception. There is can be verified through the TLWorkstation variety of criteria that generally were of little significant interest in magnetic fields be­ task modules. For example, ENVIRO can be concern to design engineers 30 years ago. cause of possible health effects. A com­ used to determine conductor surface gra­ There are pressures to provide increased puter program has been developed to cal- dients, electric and magnetic fields, and au­ energy transfer; yet, at the same time, it is culate electric and magnetic fields in terms dible noise profiles. more difficult to obtain new rights-of-way of line configuration, ground resistance, Another task in voltage upgrading is to because of concerns about environmental voltage, and loading. The program, ENVIRO, determine insulator performance and radio and electrical effects. Utilities need sophis- was developed by research engineers at and television interference. A TLWorkstation ticated design tools for use both in design- EPRl's High-Voltage Transmission Research task module for radio noise, RNOISE, is in ing new transmission lines and in upgrading Center (HVTRC) in Lenox, Massachusetts. the final stage of testing. Methods for deter­ existing lines-an alternative that is receiv- It is one of the task modules for the TL­ mining insulator performance are described ing increased attention. workstation,* an integrated system of soft- in EPRl's Tra nsmission Line Reference Book: Improved analysis methods developed ware for transmission line design. 345 kV and Above, 2d ed. (EL-2500). for EHV and UHV power transmission are be- If insulator contamination performance is Voltage upgrading ing used to improve transmission system inadequate but lightning and switching surge power transfer at lower voltage levels. This When energy transfer to a load center must performance is acceptable, one solution is article examines issues in, and approaches be increased but corridors for new trans- to use improved insulation-for example, to, improving transmission system design: mission lines are not available, existing nonceramic/composite insulators. Silicone reducing electromagnetic effects, voltage tower strength is inadequate for larger di- rubber insulators have demonstrated con- upgrading, compact line design, the use of ameter conductors, and the existing corri­ lamination performance that is superior to common corridors, and increasing conduc­ dor is not wide enough to accommodate a that of porcelain insulators. If lightning and tor loading up to thermal limits. parallel line, the only alternative may be to switching surge performance are accept­ increase the voltage on the existing line. Re­ able, line compaction (discussed below) is Electric and search for EHV and UHV transmission lines another alternative. magnetic field effects has demonstrated that the electrical design If a line is undergoing voltage upgrading Environmental considerations are an in­ of many older lines is conservative. When and the original conductor and hardware creasingly important factor in transmission that is the case, the line voltage can be in- are retained, special attention is required to line design. Electric fields are evaluated in avoid excessive electrical effects from the terms of their effect on individual safety and *TLWorkstation is an EPRI trademark. higher electrical stresses. It may be neces-

EPRI JOURNAL October/November 1988 43 field profiles from ENVIRO for a standard double-circuit 230-kV line and a compact ABSTRACT There are increasing pressures on utility transmis- 6-phase 230-kV line with two conductor heights and phase-to-phase spacing of 5 ft sion systems. Limitations on new utility generation, requirements to (1.5 m). The minimum conductor height above the ground is the same for both lines. purchase power from cogenerators, deregulation, competition fo r As the profiles show, the 6-phase line is comparable to the standard line in terms of customers, and power wheeling are placing demands on trans­ electric field strength and offers a signifi­ cant reduction in magnetic field strength. mission systems for which they were not designed. Moreover, regu- For 115- to 138-kV lines, phase-to-phase latory and environmental constraints are making it increasingly diffi- spacing can be reduced from a nominal value of 12 ft (3.7 m) to as little as 3 ft cult and time-consuming to gain approval for and install new lines. (0.9 m). Information on line compaction is presented in EPRl's Transmission Line Ref­ To help utilities get the most out of their transmission systems in the erence Book. 115-138-kV Compact Line Design (EL-0100-3). Much of the information fa ce of these challenges, EPRI is developing sophisticated design can also be applied to 230-kV compact line design. and analysis tools. These include reference books and a compre­ Common corridors hensive, integrated library of computer software. Also, EPRI oper­ The prospects for obtaining approval for a ates theHi gh-Voltage Transmission Research Center, where utilities new transmission line or a line upgrade may

can test proposed transmission line designs at full scale.

sary to install larger conductors or new right-of-way requirements. However, por­ hardware to avoid excessive radio inter­ celain posts have poorer contamination ference and audible noise. Calculating the performance than suspension insulators. In conductor gradient and the potential for ex­ areas where contamination is a problem, cessive corona is straightforward; calculat­ long-creepage-path nonceramic/ compos­ ing the hardware gradient is not To ensure ite post insulators can be used to provide that hardware corona will not be excessive the needed insulation strength, or porcelain and that the line will perform as designed, it posts can be coated with silicone com­ may be necessary to construct a short test pound or room-temperature-vulcanized sil­ line. The HVTRC provides this capability. icone rubber to improve their withstand strength. Compact line design High-phase-order transmission is a line Line compaction, which can be used in up­ compaction technique that can be used to grading existing lines or in designing new reduce electromagnetic effects (Figure 1). lines, may be an attractive option for several The ENVIRO program can calculate electro­ reasons. These include the need to mini­ magnetic effects for lines with up to 12 mize right-of-way requirements, the need to phases. The program has a special feature reduce electromagnetic field effects or im­ to reduce data input for 3-, 6-, and 12-phase pedance effects, and minimal visual and lines; when this feature is activated, user­ Figure 1 The 6- and 12-phase lines shown physical intrusion. supplied data for the first phase will auto­ here are examples of compact line design. These lines were developed by Oak Ridge Na­ Post-type insulators, which eliminate con­ matically be entered for the other phases. tional Laboratory under the sponsorship of ductor swing, are one means of reducing Figure 2 presents electric and magnetic the Department of Energy.

44 EPR I JOURNAL October/November 1988 be improved if the line shares a corridor with Figure 2 The ENVIRO computer program was used to compare a standard double-circuit 230-kV a pipeline, a railroad, or a communications line and a compact 6-phase 230-kV line in terms of (a) electric field strength and (b) magnetic field strength. The two line designs had the same minimum conductor height. The results conductor. Constructing new lines or up­ indicate that in addition to minimizing right-of-way requirements, compact line designs can grading existing lines along such common actually reduce magnetic field strength while producing comparable electric fields. corridors may require the evaluation of in­ a duction effects with respect to safety issues. Two EPRI computer programs, CORRIDOR and ECCAPP, are available for making these predictions. CORRIDOR was devel­ oped for use with the IBM-AT version of the 1.5 TLWorkstation. ECCAPP was developed as a stand-alone program for use with the IBM mainframe and VAX computers. CORRIDOR has been used in more than 18 transmis­ sion line-railroad site studies in the United States and has demonstrated good accu­ racy.

Methods for increasing conductor loading Utility economics, together with regulatory 0.5 directives (e.g., the Public Utility Regulatory Double-circuit Policies Act, or PURPA), environmental is­ line sues, and deregulation, are causing trans­ mission systems to be loaded at higher levels. In many cases, these factors are -125 0 125 250 causing utilities to import power from other Distance (ft) areas. A utility may import power from dis- tant hydroelectric generation sites, for ex- b 100 ..------�------� ample, or it may be required to wheel power through its transmission system to other util- ities or industrial customers who are pur- chasing power elsewhere at a lower price. 80 For reasons of economic operation and reliability, long transmission lines generally 6' Double-circuit are not loaded above their surge imped­ -S line .c ance loading. Historically, two parallel lines -o, 60 have not been loaded above 50% of their a, C __,_a,> a,� normal static rating, so that if one line -6Cl) C "0 tripped out, the other could safely carry the eu::::::, ai combined load. Today, however, the eco­ (9 (.) 40 nomic and regulatory factors cited above C 6-phase line are exerting pressure on utilities to increase conductor loading up to thermal limits. A major issue facing utilities is how to in­ 20 crease transmission line loading without exceeding the safe conductor temperature. An alternative to basing loading on a con­ ductor's static ampacity rating is to use a method of variable thermal rating. One such -125 0 125 250 method is ambient temperature adjustment. Distance (ft)

EPRI JOURNAL October/November 1988 45 In this method, a minimal wind speed (e.g., system that actually monitors the conductor HVTRC's range of transmission line research 2 mph) and the wind direction (e.g., per­ temperature and the meteorological condi­ and test capabilities-a fact recognized by pendicular to the conductor) are assumed, tions to predict the allowed ampacity. EPRl's member utilities when they chose to and the allowed current is calculated as a One West Coast utility was required by a save the center by acquiring it from General function of air temperature and conductor state public utilities commission to substi­ Electric. The HVTRC has provided significant characteristics. tute variable thermal rating for static am­ data to the industry on EHV and UHV line Another, more sophisticated method of pacity rating in order to accommodate co­ design. An important focus of research now variable thermal rating-one that is receiv­ generation. The utility is currently using the in progress is transmission and distribution ing significant R&D effort-is conductor dy­ ambient temperature adjustment method system magnetic fields. namic thermal rating. It takes into account and is evaluating dynamic thermal rating as The facility is a valuable resource where actual wind velocity and solar radiation as an alternative. utility engineers can conceptualize and test well as the ambient temperature. EPRl's new transmission ideas, with assistance DYNAMP program uses this method to pre­ The HVTRC from HVTRC engineers. The center provides dict the conductor temperature and allowed EPRl's High-Voltage Transmission Research the means for verifying designs with full­ ampacity as part of an off-line dynamic Center is a unique research facility. No other scale mockups or, in the case of electric rating system. Also available is an on-line facility in the United States matches the fields, through small-scale modeling.

Toxics and Health TOXRISK: Computerized Health Risk Assessment by Abe Silvers, Environment Division

isk assessment is a methodology for determined by two equally important tac­ The risk from chemical exposure de­ R inferring the risks to public health from tors: the level of human exposure to the creases as the level of exposure decreases, man-made substances in the environment. chemical and the potency of the chemical with the risk becoming very small at very low Estimating the occurrence of cancer as a (i.e., its potential for producing undesirable exposure levels. This dose-response prin­ result of exposure to various agents has health effects). Thus, to ensure a safe work- ciple is fundamental to toxicology. It implies been the primary focus of risk assessments. ing environment and to protect the public, that human health can be adequately pro­ Such estimates are usually made by expos- utility industry toxicologists and environ­ tected by controlling the level of exposure to ing animals to the substances of interest mental managers assess both the potential a toxic chemical. and then extrapolating the results to the hu- for exposure and the potency of chemicals. To assess the potential health effects of man population. In these animal bioassays, rodents and other species are exposed to various doses of the substance under test. The animals are ABSTRACT Assessing the potential human health risks of toxic then observed until they die or are sacri­ ficed, and extensive autopsies are per­ substances in the environment is a demanding task and one with formed to estimate the number of tumors. far-reaching consequences for utilities. EPRI has developed TOX­ Exposed animals are compared with un­ exposed animals to determine if the number RISK, computer program that fa cilitates the risk assessment pro­ of tumors in the exposed group is signifi­ a cantly higher than that in the control group. cess. TOXRISK enables utility managersto communicate more effec­ Mathematical models are used to predict human risk at low exposure levels on the tively with regulatory agencies, to evaluate various assumptions in basis of results from these high-dose animal bioassays. risk assessment, and to develop estimates of safe dose. The predicted risk to human health from exposure to a potentially toxic chemical is

46 EPRI JOURNAL October/November 1988 exposure and the potential effects of regu­ Figure 1 TOXRISK generates this kind of graph to show how well various dose-response models latory proposals, utility environmental man­ fit experimental toxicological data. Here the data points indicate, for four doses of the substance under test and for no dose, the probability that a tumor will develop in rats. The bars indicate agers conduct risk assessments for sub­ the confidence limits for the data. TOXRISK has plotted two dose-response models (curves) stances of concern to the industry. A new against the data. EPRI computer program, TOXRISK, auto­ mates and facilitates this process.

TOXRISK methodology 0.8 A basic function of TOXRISK is to estimate safe doses of potentially toxic materials by extrapolating from animal data to predict 0.6 human health effects. The user can supply g i5 estimates of exposure in order to obtain overall estimates of excess risk-that is, the 0.4 incremental risk occurring as a result of exposure. Alternatively, the estimated dose­ response relationship can be used to pre­ dict exposure levels consistent with pre­ 0.2 determined low maximum levels of excess risk (e.g., 1 case in 1,000,000 exposures).

To allow the assessment of risk under a 100 200 300 400 500 600 range of alternative assumptions, TOXRISK Dose (ppm) implements a number of dose-response statistical procedures that estimate risks as a function of exposure. Several statisti- TOXRISK provides the user with a con­ graphs showing the fit of the dose-response cal dose-response models are included in venient environment in which to perform models to the data (Figure 1). TOXRISK, such as the linearized multistage standard types of health risk assessment. To extrapolate from animal to human model frequently used by regulatory agen- The procedures implemented by TOXRISK risks, TOXRISK either calculates the human cies, K-stage models, the log-normal model, are most frequently used in estimating car­ risks from user-specified exposure esti­ the Weibull model, and the Mantel-Bryan cinogenic risk. In this application, TOXRISK mates or calculates the doses that corre- model. uses the following toxicological data: the spond to user-specified levels of risk. Users TOXRISK also facilitates the management number of animals in the various dose can select methods based on different of toxicological data and automatically groups in a carcinogenesis bioassay, the routes of exposure for converting from ani­ makes appropriate statistical and mathe- experimental dose applied to each group of mals to humans. The software supplies de­ matical calculations. This enables risk man- animals, and the number of animals in each fault values for animal and human parame­ agers to get the answers they need from risk group that acquired a tumor of the type of ters (e.g., body weight, breathing rate, life assessments and ensures that appropriate interest. Also used are data on body weight, span) so that it is not necessary to obtain mathematical and statistical procedures are breathing rate, water consumption rate, and values for these from the literature before being applied. food consumption rate both for the experi­ using TOXRISK. The model makes it easy to The use of TOXRISK does not replace the mental animals and for humans. store and modify data on these parameters need for performing a careful toxicological After the toxicological data have been in­ and facilitates their proper application in evaluation of data and for making informed put, TOXRISK calculates standard statistical risk calculations. choices about the data to be used as the tests for dose-related effects. It can derive The program contains many user-friendly basis for a risk assessment. It does, the fits of several mathematical dose­ features. Its improved algorithms permit however, allow the user to concentrate on response models to the data. In each case, mathematical calculations to be performed those important tasks by facilitating data it gives a measure of the model's fit by pro- interactively in most cases. A batch feature management and calculations. viding the chi-square value and the corre- allows several risk assessment approaches sponding p-value. These procedures allow to be applied automatically to different sets TOXRISK features the user to determine if any of TOXRISK's of toxicological data. TOXRISK provides a A menu-driven interactive software pack- dose-response models adequately corre­ summary of risk calculations performed on age for IBM-compatible microcomputers, spond to the data. TOXRISK can also provide a group of toxicological data sets.

EPRI JOURNAL October/November 1988 47 Data entry is accomplished by using fill- rarily to a DOS shell to perform other DOS (the preferred configuration). Also neces­ in-the-blank tables. Validation of the data applications while keeping TOXRISK resi- sary is a numerical coprocessor chip­ takes place during data entry, which elimi- dent in random access memory (RAM). 8087, 80287, or 80387, depending on the nates many of the common data entry mis- TOXRISK is designed to run on IBM- computer. Currently the graphing function takes. Preprogrammed selections, such as compatible microcomputers with DOS 3.0 or of TOXRISK requires the use of a graphics the choice of species data or dose units, are higher. The program requires either 537K or board and Lotus 1-2-3, although a planned implemented through the use of pull-down 305K of RAM, depending on whether the future modification will eliminate the need windows. On-screen help appears in a spe­ graphing function is run from within TOXRISK for Lotus. This and other enhancements to cial help or status window. The program can or independently. It requires a 720K (or TOXRISK are being pursued in ongoing output results to a printer or to a computer larger) floppy drive, or two 360K floppy work. The current version is available from screen or file. Also, the user can exit tempo- drives, or one floppy drive and a hard drive the Electric Power Software Center.

Radiation Control Decontamination of BWR Fuel Bundles by Howard Ocken, Nuclear Power Division

econtamination of individual systems cesses were preceded by the application of lots of Zircaloy cladding. The two test bun­ D in operating reactors, such as recircu­ an oxidizing alkaline permanganate (AP) dies and the one control bundle were lation piping in BWRs and steam generators step to facilitate dissolution of chromium. sipped before they were decontaminated to in PWRs, is being increasingly used by nu­ Chromium-rich oxides typically form under confirm that they contained no failed fuel. clear utilities to reduce radiation fields and PWR operating conditions. The fuel channels had been reused; their occupational radiation exposure. Because The fuel bundles had been irradiated in discharge exposure was 50,590 MWd/t a significant inventory of radioactivity re- symmetrical positions in the reactor core ±2%. sides on the fuel rod surfaces, a longer-term and for two cycles were in adjacent loca­ The decontamination took place at the goal is to decontaminate the entire plant tions. The bundle exposures were 29,780 Quad Cities station in May 1986. The fuel with the fuel in place. Full plant decontam- MWd/t ±0.1%. A significant number of fuel assemblies were transferred from the stor­ ination has proved effective in CANDU and rods had been fabricated from the same age rack into a specially constructed stain- SGHWR plants, but only recently have U.S. plants seriously considered its merits. A first step is to show that highly irradiated LWR ABSTRACT Th e first-ever decontamination of LWR fuel bundles core components will not suffer any adverse effects from exposure to commercial de- was performed at Commonwealth Edison's Quad Cities station us- contamination solvents.

On-site research ing the CAN-DEGON and LOMI solvents. Va rious analyses showed To test this idea, EPRI studied the applica- substantial amounts of radioactive corrosion products were re- tion of the LOMI and CAN-DECON solvents to fuel bundles that had been discharged after moved without inducing fuel rod damage. Th e intact fuel bundles three cycles of exposure in Commonwealth Edison's Quad Cities-2 BWR. Highly irra­ were shipped to the Babcock & Wilcox hot cells for detailed exam­ diated stainless steel specimens were cut ination. There was no evidence of general or localized corrosion from a section of a Lacrosse BWR control blade and decontaminated at the same attack by LOMI, but CAN-DEGON attacked some of the small com­ time as the fuel bundles. CAN-DECON was selected to represent dilute chelant pro­ ponents that were fabricated with lnconel X-750. cesses, while LOMI represented processes involving stronger reduction. Both pro-

48 EPRI JOURNAL October/November 1988 less steel decontamination chamber that Figure 1 Feasibility and cost-benefit evaluations show that full-system decontamination using was positioned in the spent fuel pool. The the LOMI process is more effective than conventional, part-system techniques for both PWRs (a) and BWRs (b). The benefits, primarily resulting from lower radiation exposure to plant mainte­ chamber held one fuel bundle and one set nance workers, are calculated on the basis of $10,000 per rem avoided. of control rod coupons that was attached a to the fuel channel. The decontamination 30 and waste-handling operations proceeded .Cost smoothly at the site in accordance with pro­ 25 cedures developed by the contractors and . Benefit the host utility. The only unanticipated event was a sample line leak that developed in the 20 pump skid near the end of the CAN-DECON 0 application. a 0 The metals and radionuclides removed 15 C by the decontamination processes were � monitored continuously. The LOMI process 2 10 removed over six times more activity than CAN-DECON did. Chemical analyses per­ formed during the decontaminations, post­ 5 decontamination sipping of the assemblies, p.nd isotopic analyses of the waste resins showed no evidence of fission products or 0 Part system Full system Full system (channel head) (fuel in) (fuel out) transuranics. The project's key objective Decontamination Option was met: showing that fuel crud could be removed without inducing fuel rod failure. b 60

Component examination .Cost The spent resins containing the radionu­ 50 clides removed by each of the solvents . Benefit were stored in separate containers, from 40 which individual samples were taken and (J) analyzed . The spent resins were mixed, a0 solidified in cement, and disposed of at 0 30 (J) Commonwealth Edison's Barnwell site. C � The two decontaminated bundles and a 2 control bundle that had not been decontam­ 20 inated were shipped to the Babcock & Wil­ cox hot cell for detailed characterization of key components, using both nondestructive 10 and destructive examination techniques. Visual examination showed streaks on the 0 Part system Full system Full system fuel rods in the bundle treated with CAN­ (recirculation piping) (fuel in) (fuel out) DECON, suggesting incomplete removal of Decontamination Option fuel deposits; the LOMl-treated bundle was shiny, suggesting complete removal of crud. scanning electron microscopy. The surface up in Zircaloy components also was typical Measurements of oxide thickness on fuel of components fabricated from Zircaloy of values for the exposure levels reached . rods from the decontaminated bundles, ac- {fuel rods, spacer grids, and channels) LOMI did not attack the thin, adherent oxide complished using a nondestructive eddy showed no evidence of oxide attack by the layer that formed on most surfaces of lnco­ current method, showed values typical of decontamination solvents . This study, in nel X-750 components (expansion spring, three-cycle BWR fuel. Detailed character- fact, marks the first time BWR fuel channels lantern spring, and finger spring), and there ization of key components following bundle have been so extensively characterized fol­ was no evidence of damage to the under­ disassembly relied primarily on optical and lowing in-reactor exposure. Hydrogen pick- lying base metal. The finger spring in the

EPRI JOURNAL October/November 1988 49 bundle cleaned by CAN-DECON suffered laminated and control specimens that were Future directions severe corrosion attack, and the lantern most highly irradiated, and time to failure The initial results obtained from this pro­ spring, moderate attack. Neither solvent increased as the fluence level decreased. gram are encouraging, and no technical ar­ caused damage to fuel bundle hardware Therefore, no deleterious effects could be guments have emerged against using LOMI made from stainless steel. attributed to the use of the decontamination for full-plant decontamination. The absence Examination showed that two spacer solvents. A heavy, thick film was found on of deleterious effects in the highly irradiated grids were cracked in the LOMl-treated bun­ the specimens treated with CAN-DECON. stainless steel specimen suggests that in dle. However, after the bundles were re­ This surface film was readily removed by plant applications, decontamination sol­ turned to the Quad Cities site, it was found means of ultrasonics. vents could be passed through the reactor that the control bundle that was not decon­ The incomplete removal of crud from the pressure vessel. taminated suffered similar damage to one bundle treated with CAN-DECON and films The results from this field test have been spacer grid. It appears that grid spacer on the stainless steel specimens treated incorporated in a recently completed study damage was induced by vibration during with this solvent suggest that activity and concluding that full-system decontamina­ shipment. Such damage is minimized or removed metal circulating in the chamber tion of BWRs and PWRs is technically feasi­ eliminated during shipment of new bundles during the CAN-DECON decontamination re­ ble and cost-effective for both the fuel-in from the vendor to the plant by the use of sulted in deposits on all surfaces (full bun­ and fuel-out cases. The cost data for the restraining shims, but this procedure can­ dles, stainless steel specimens, and cham­ reference PWR (Zion) and the reference not be used for irradiated bundles. ber walls). The deposits probably occurred BWR (Quad Cities) are shown in Figures 1a The stainless steel specimens were ex­ when flow was stopped and the tempera­ and 1b. A technical review of the fuel de­ amined at General Electric's Vallecitos Nu­ ture was reduced toward the end of the contamination results and other corrosion clear Center. No surface attack or evidence CAN-DECON test, following discovery of the data was carried out by General Electric. of intergranular attack was observed with leak in the sample line, mentioned earlier. The review panel found no unresolved cor­ either solvent. Measurements of suscep­ Temporary repairs were completed in four rosion issues associated with the use of the tibility to stress corrosion cracking using hours, but during this time the fuel bundle LOMI solvent without a preoxidation step for controlled extension rate test specimens was exposed to stagnant CAN-DECON sol- full-system decontamination with fuel re- showed about the same amount of inter- vent at low temperature. The deposited ma­ moved. Accordingly, EPRI and interested granular attack (about 30-40%) at failure. terial was dissolved in the subsequent test utilities are moving to implement such a Times to failure were shortest with decon- with the LOMI solvent. project.

Storage Te chnologies Dynamic Benefits of Energy Storage by Bert M. Louks, Advanced Power Systems Division

n earlier article in the EPR! Journal thought of as consisting only of a saving in and with improved customer reliability. Dy­ A (April/May 1987, p. 38) presented the fuel cost by using storage for peak shaving. namic benefits are those that accrue to a purpose and rationale for developing new The fuel cost saving results from using generation system by use of the rapid time planning tools to assess the so-called dy­ stored lower-cost nuclear and coal energy response capabilities of storage units dur­ namic benefits of energy storage technolo­ instead of premium fuels for peaking. How­ ing the charging and discharging oper­ gies. There are several types of energy stor­ ever, peak shaving is not the sole benefit. ational phases. age technologies. They are: pumped hydro, There are others, which fall into two catego­ In May 1984, DOE and EPRI cosponsored batteries, compressed-air energy storage ries: inherent and dynamic. a symposium on the dynamic benefits of (CAES), and superconducting magnetic en­ Inherent benefits, as the term is used energy storage plant operation. Represen­ ergy storage (SMES). All but SMES are used here, are those that might result from con- tatives of utilities from various nations pre­ commercially. This present report describes structing storage technologies in financially sented papers, many of which discussed these efforts, beginning with a review of the less burdensome modules and/or placing the dynamic benefits of energy storage rationale. them near load centers, with resulting bene- technologies resulting principally from their Normally, the benefit of energy storage is fits to transmission and distribution systems fast-start and high-ramp-rate capabilities.

50 EPRI JOURNAL October/November 1988 charging, both the charging and storage capacity can be classified as spinning re­ ABSTRACT Energy storage can improve the operating flexibil­ serve, thereby relieving extra generating capacity for spinning reserve duty. ity and reliability of electric power systems. Two new computer When storage is not available, a unit pro­ viding spinning reserve operates at less models-DYNA MICS and DYNASTORE-are being designed to than full capacity (unit 2 in Figure 1a). However, when storage is available (Figure show utilities how to reap the many dynamic benefits storage sys­ 1 b) and when storage is being charged, the tems provide. charging load and storage capacity qualify as spinning reserve, allowing unit 2 to run at full capacity. When the storage unit is generating at less than its full capacity, its reserve capac­ Some speakers deplored the fact that the is available. With storage providing spin­ ity qualifies as spinning reserve, and unit 2 more popular production cost models do ning reserve, thermal units (which otherwise is permitted to continue at full output. For a not properly capture and report dynamic would be derated to provide spinning re­ period after 6 p.m. (see Figure 1b) when benefits. These models, based on convolu- serve) can now operate up to full capacity at storage energy is nearly depleted, unit 2 lion of load duration curves, do not accu- lower heat rates, resulting in an appreciable has to provide spinning reserve. However, rately represent the chronology of events. saving in fuel cost. In addition, during over the day, the cost of electricity for cus- Accordingly, EPRI felt it important to fund the development of two chronological models a b that would include modeling the capabilities of the various energy storage technolo­ gies-DYNAMICS and DYNASTORE. Deci­ sion Focus is developing DYNAMICS; Elec­ tric Power Consulting is developing DYNA­ STORE. DYNAMICS is mathematically sophisti­ cated, using Lagrangian relaxation optimi- Unit 5 zation techniques for unit commitment and Coal dynamic programming for unit dispatch. � Unit 5 DYNASTORE uses a simpler heuristic tech- e.c: Coal Unit 4 0 Coal nique for unit commitment and the conven- ·'iii cii Unit 4 tional equal lambda method for unit dis- :i5 Coal patch. DYNASTORE also permits interactive CJ Unit 3 unit commitment. An interim report on DYNA­ Coal Unit 3 STORE has been published (EPRI AP-5550). Coal This article describes specific dynamic benefits the two computer codes are ad­ Unit 2 Unit 2 dressing, together with preliminary mea- Coal Coal sures of some of them. o Spinning reserve benefits o Minimum load benefits Unit 1 Unit 1 Nuclear Nuclear o Ramp rate benefits o Frequency regulation I I 6a.m. 12 noon 6 p.m. J l 6a.m. 12 noon 6 p.m. J o Other benefits Because energy storage technologies Figure 1 This figure is a very stylized drawing of a daily load curve, showing how generation have quick-start capability, a storage plant units are dispatched throughout the day (a) when the system does not include energy storage, and (b) when it does. In figure 1b, unit 2, which is less expensive to operate, can run at full can provide the spinning reserve often car­ capacity while the storage system provides spinning reserve. Shaded area on b represents ried by thermal units any time stored energy energy used for charging the storage plant.

EPRI JOURNAL October/November 1988 51 tomer load is lowered because unit 2 (which ing down units only when load begins to fall . control is worth additional savings. is, on the average, cheaper to run than the But if ramping down rates are too slow, sur­ Energy storage may provide several overall generation mix) is able to generate plus electricity may be generated, which other benefits. One can be called capacity at a higher output level and at a better heat will have to be "dumped" to neighbors at credit. For example, Figure 1b shows that rate. times when they may not need it. Second, when storage is available, units 7 and 8 can At nighttime, when customer load is at a thermal units can be ramped down before be placed in standby reserve. Another minimum, some units are operating at min­ load begins falling. This action would result benefit can accrue when there is a sudden imum loads with very poor heat rates, or in turning down inexpensive units sooner forced outage of a thermal unit. In this in­ they are shut down. With energy storage than economically justified, as shown in Fig­ stance, storage facilities can rapidly cover on the system, units otherwise minimum­ ure 1a. Storage can help by ramping down the outage and keep it covered until reserve loaded at night can operate at higher its generation to follow the load and/or combustion turbines can be brought on­ capacities and better heat rates when pro­ switching into its charging mode to absorb line. This benefit is in addition to the spin­ viding electricity to charge storage. Or, the dumped power. ning reserve benefit previously described. alternatively, unit shutdowns and startups Energy storage is also ideal for frequency The previous benefit is the value of provid­ might be avoided for the same reason . In regulation because of its rapid ramping ing "standby" spinning reserve. The benefit this latter case, startup and added mainte­ capability. All storage technologies can pro­ of covering a forced outage is the value of nance costs resulting from thermal cycling vide frequency regulation because of their the ability of storage facilities to instanta­ can be avoided. fast ramp rate capability. All, except for neously cover the outage. Storage facilities These benefits are apparent in Figure 1. pumped hydro, can do this function in both can also be used for voltage and power Without storage, unit 4 cannot be backed charge and discharge modes. Pumped hy- factor correction. down to less than one-third of full capacity dro can do this function only in discharge Dynamic benefits will most likely vary for process hardware reasons. As a result, mode. considerably from system to system. Using unit 3 must be backed down (at most) to Frequency regulation requires that acer­ a small sample system and the DYNASTORE one-half of its capacity. These units are then tain amount of megawatt output in a unit be code, the following benefits were calcu­ operating at less than optimum efficiencies reserved for the regulation function. This is lated. They are expressed in capital costs for 10 hours of the day. However, the units called regulating reserve or regulating mar­ equivalent to the daily saving in operating can operate at full capacity and maximum gin. Regulating margin can be thought of cost, assuming the savings occur 200 days efficiencies for all 24 hours when storage is as a more stringent form of spinning re­ a year. available, and electricity for customer load serve. It is spinning reserve on a unit that is 0 Spinning-reserve benefit: $450/kW of can be generated at lower fuel costs. equipped to maintain system frequency. storage capacity Because of the minimum load, unit 5 must Like spinning reserve, frequency regula­ 0 Load-following benefit: $60/kW of stor­ be shut down at midnight and restarted at 6 tion costs money because it requires acer­ age capacity a.m. when storage is not available . With tain amount of spare generating capacity to o Minimum load benefit: $80/kW of storage storage, this unit can operate all day, and be dedicated and reserved. Frequency reg- capacity startup and added maintenance costs from ulation may cost more because only certain Side-by-side sample case runs using on-off cycling can be avoided. units with the necessary setup can serve DYNAMICS and DYNASTORE codes indicate Figure 1 also illustrates ramp rate bene- that duty. For example, if an expensive oil­ that they produce similar results. Both fits. Without storage, units 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 fired unit is needed for frequency regulation codes have been tested by utilities with sat­ cannot ramp up fast enough to supply re­ all the time, it must be on-line all the time, isfactory results, although the interpretation quired load . In each case, early startup of even when it is not economical for it to be of results from the DYNAMICS code at the more-expensive units is required to help on-line. present time has to be done with care . meet load. As shown in Figure 1b, ramping The advantage of having energy storage Energy storage can improve the operat­ limits of units 3, 4, and 5 are no longer a for frequency regulation is that it may allow ing flexibility and reliability of electric power problem, and energy from storage is used a steam unit to be taken off frequency con­ systems and can yield many more benefits to assist unit 6 in meeting customer load. trol and loaded to its output, where it is at its than the single peaking fuel cost saving that Another ramp rate benefit occurs when most cost-effective level. Therefore, even if many credit to energy storage. EPRI is hope­ load suddenly decreases at night. If thermal the economics do not require the storage ful that such models as DYNAMICS and units cannot ramp down fast enough, a util­ plant to be operated at its maximum capa- DYNASTORE will be able to exhibit many of ity has two choices. First, it can start ramp- city, its spare capacity under frequency these additional benefits.

52 EPRI JOURNAL October/November 1988 Load-Leveling Lead-Acid Battery Systems Fabric Filter Testing at the TVA for Customer-Side Applications: Market Atmospheric Fluidized-Bed Combustion New Potential and Commercialization Strategy (AFBC) Pilot Plant AP/EM-5895 Final Report (RP1084-21); $32.50 CS-5837 Final Report (RP1179-19); $350 Technical Contractor: Batte/le, Columbus Division Contractor: Southern Research Institute EPRI Project Manager: D. Rigney EPRI Project Manager: T. Boyd

Reports Proceedings: 1987 Fuel Oil High-Reliability Feedwater Heater Study Utilization Wo rkshop CS-5856 Final Report (RP1887-2); $500 Requests for copies of reports should be directed to AP-5937 Proceedings (RP2778-5); $47.50 Contractor: Heat Exchanger Systems, Inc. Research Reports Center, P.O. Box 50490, Palo Alto, Contractor: Energy Systems Associates EPRI Project Manager: J. Tsou California 94303; (415) 965-4081 . There is no charge EPRI Project Manager: W. Rovesti for reports requested by EPRI member utilities, U.S. Symposium Proceedings: Power Plant Pumps universities, or government agencies. Others in the CS-5857 Proceedings (RP1884-25); $70 United States, Mexico, and Canada pay the listed COAL COMBUSTION SYSTEMS price. Overseas price is double the listed price. Re­ Contractor: Case Western Reserve University search Reports Center will send a catalog of EPRI EPRI Project Manager: S. Pace Fabric Filters for the Electric reports on request. For information on how to order Utility Industry, Vols. 1 and 2 one-page summaries of reports, contact the EPRI Symposium Proceedings: Rotating Technical Information Division, P.O. Box 10412, Palo CS-5161 Final Report (RP1129-8); Vol. 1, Machinery Dynamics, Bearings, and Seals Alto, California 94303; (415) 855-2411. $35; Vo l. 2, $500 CS-5858 Proceedings (RP1648-8); $62.50 Contractor: Southern Research Institute Contractor: Case Western Reserve University EPRI Project Manager: W. Piulle EPRI Project Manager: S. Pace

Remaining Life Assessment of Influence of Generic Chemical Additives Superheater and Reheater Tubes ADVANCED POWER SYSTEMS on Cooling-System Performance CS-5564 Final Report (RP2253-5); $500 CS-5903 Final Report (RP1261-15); $32.50 Contractor: Aptech Engineering Services, Inc. Contractor: Science Applications International Development of Molten Carbonate EPRI Project Managers: R. Viswanathan, Fuel Cell Components Corp. R. Townsend EPRI Project Manager: W. Micheletti AP-5789 Final Report (RP1085-3); $32.50 Contractor: Energy Research Corp. Laboratory Guidelines and Procedures EPRI Project Manager: R. Goldstein Application of Pilot-Scale for Coal Analysis, Vol. 1: Assessing Coal Testing to Utility Boilers the Cleanability of Fine Coal CS-5946 Final Report (RP1266-42); $150 Design of High-Reliability Gas Turbine CS-5644 Interim Report (RP1400-4); $300 Controls and Accessories Contractor: Energy and Environmental Research Contractors: Pennsylvania Electric Co.; New York Corp. AP-5823 Final Report (RP2467-1); $47.50 State Electric & Gas Corp.; PTL-lnspectorate, Inc. EPRI Project Manager: A. Mehta Contractor: General Electric Co. EPRI Project Managers: J. Hervol, C. Harrison EPRI Project Managers: R. Frischmuth, C. Dohner On-Line Corrosion Monitoring Cool Water Gasification-Combined-Cycle in Cathodically Protected Systems ELECTRICAL SYSTEMS Power Plant: Availability Analysis CS-5695 Final Report (RP1689-7); $200 Thermal Overload Characteristics AP-5829 Final Report (RP1461-1); $25 Contractor: SRI International of Extruded Dielectric Cables Contractor: ARINC Research Corp. EPRI Project Manager: B. Syrett EPRI Project Manager: J. Weiss EL-5757 Final Report (RP1516-1); $47.50 Guidelines for Cofiring Refuse-Derived Contractor: Cable Technology Laboratories, Inc. Thermal Energy Storage for Advanced Fuel in Electric Utility Boilers, Vols. 1-3 EPRI Project Manager: B. Bernstein Compressed-Air Energy Storage Plants CS-5754 Final Report (RP1861-1); Vol. 1, $25; State of the Art of High-Voltage AP-5844 Interim Report (RP2676-1); $32.50 Vol. 2, $200; Vol. 3, $32.50 Solid-Dielectric Cable Systems: Contractor: Gibbs & Hill, Inc. Contractor: Midwest Research Institute Recommendations for Improvement EPRI Project Manager: R. Pollak EPRI Project Manager: C. McGow·1 n EL-5852 Final Report (TPS82-631); $25 Contractor: Underground Systems, Inc. Photovoltaic Resource Assessment Laboratory Characterization of Advanced 502 in Colorado Control By-Products: Spray Dryer Wastes EPRI Project Manager: J. Shimshock AP-5883 Final Report (RP1607-4); $40 CS-5782 Final Report (RP2708-1); $40 Technical Limits to Transmission Contractor: Platte River Power Authority Contractor: /CF Technology Inc. System Operation EPRI Project Manager: J. Schaefer EPRI Project Manager: D. Golden EL-5859 Final Report (RP5005-2); $40 Investigation of Specific Combustion Laboratory Characterization of Contractor: Power Technologies, Inc. EPRI Project Manager: F. Yo ung Turbine and Combined-Cycle Field Problems: Advanced 502 Control By-Products: Compressor Blade Migration Furnace Sorbent Injection Wastes AP-5887 Final Report (RP1802-9); $25 CS-5783 Final Report (RP2708-1); $32.50 Contractor: Southwest Research Institute Contractor: ICF Technology Inc. ENERGY MANAGEMENT EPRI Project Manager: R. Frischmuth EPRI Project Manager: D. Golden AND UTILIZATION

Treatability Testing of KILnGAS and Interaction Between Coal Combustion The Indoor Environment Texaco Coal Gasification Wastewaters By-Products and Natural Liners of Commercial Buildings AP-5893 Final Report (RP2526-1); $40 CS-5801 Final Report (RP1457-2); $150 EM-5884 Final Report (RP2034-18); $32.50 Contractors: CH2M-Hill; Energy & Mineral Center Contractor: Batte/le, Pacific Northwest Laboratories Contractor: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory EPRI Project Manager: M. Epstein EPRI Project Manager: M. McLearn EPRI Project Managers: J. Harper, M. Blatt

EPRI JOURNAL October/November 1988 53 Performance of Electronic Soil Response to Earthquake Ground Motion An Approach for Predicting Reference Ballasts and Lighting Controllers NP-5747 Final Report (RP2556-7); $47.50 Fracture Toughness in Irradiated Vessel With 34-W Fluorescent Lamps Contractor: Woodward-Clyde Consultants Materials EM-5888 Final Report (RP2285-4); $25 EPRI Project Manager: C. Stepp NP-5793 Final Report (RP2455-13); $32.50 Contractor: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory Contractor: Robert L. Cloud Associates, Inc. EPRI Project Managers: K. Johnson, G. Purcell Simquake Ill: Seismic Interactions EPRI Project Manager: T. Griesbach Between Building Structures and Rock­ Microwave Sintering of Ceramics Socketed Foundations Catalytic Methods EM-5890 Final Report (RP2730-1); $25 NP-5752 Final Report (RP810-11); $47.50 of Deoxygenating Water Contractor: Northwestern University Contractors: Anco Engineers, Inc.; NP-5794 Final Report (RP1571-2); $25 EPRI Project Manager: R. Jeffress Niagara Mohawk Power Corp. Contractor: Atomic Energy of Canada EPRI Project Manager: Y. Tang Limited Research Co. Energy Use, Air Infiltration, EPRI Project Manager: T. Passell and Indoor Air Quality in Source Term Experiments Project Well-Insulated Residences (STEP): A Summary Control-Room Deficiencies, Remedial Options, and Human Factors Research Needs EM-5896 Final Report (RP2034-1); $25 NP-5753M Final Report (RP2351-1); $32.50 Contractor: Geomet Technologies, Inc. NP-5753SP Final Report, Vol. 1, $100,000; NP-5795 Final Report (RP1637-6); $32.50 EPRI Project Manager: J. Kesselring Vol. 2, $100,000; Vol. 3, $100,000 Contractor: Joseph L. Seminara Contractor: Argonne National Laboratory EPRI Project Manager: H. Parris Glass Industry Scoping Study EPRI Project Manager: R. Ritzman EM-5912 Final Report (RP2893-5); $32.50 Hydrogen Water Chemistry to Contractor: Science Applications International Corp. Automated Ultrasonic Pipe Examination Mitigate lntergranular Stress Corrosion EPRI Project Manager: R. Jeffress and Data Interpretation Cracking: In-Reactor Tests NP-5760 Interim Report (RP1570-2, NP-5800M Final Report (RP1930-4); $25 Demand-Side Planning Program: RPT301-23); $25 NP-5800SP Final Report; $15,000 Projects and Products, 1974-1987 Contractor: J. A. Jones Applied Research Co. Contractor: ASEA-Atom EPRI Project Manager: D. Cubicciotti EM-5917-SR Special Report; $32.50 EPRI Project Managers: G. Dau, M. Behravesh EPRI Project Manager: C. Gellings PWR Water Treatment Improvements: Method for Detecting Resin Leakage Cost-Benefit Analysis in LWR Coolant NP-5802 Interim Report (RP1447-2); $25 ENVIRONMENT NP-5764 Final Report (RP1571-5); $25 Contractor: The American University Contractors: NWT Corp.; Gibbs & Hill, Inc. EPRI Project Manager: T. Passell The Fossil Fuel Combustion Waste Leaching EPRI Project Manager: T. Passell (FOWL) Code, Version 1: User's Manual Effects of Liquid Droplets on Degradation and Failure of Bolting EA-5742-CCM Computer Code Manual (RP2485-8); Fuel-to-Fluid Heat Transfer in Rod in Nuclear Power Plants, Vols. 1 and 2 $32.50 Bundles With and Without Blockages Contractor Battelle, Pacific Northwest Laboratories NP-5769 Final Report (RP2520-7); Vol. 1, NP-5809 Final Report (RP959-5); $32.50 EPRI Project Manager: I. Murarka $32.50; Vol. 2, $47.50 Contractor: University of California Contractor: Applied Science & Technology at Los Angeles EPRI Project Managers: R. Burke, T. Marston Bromide Transport Through an EPRI Project Manager: J. Sursock Unsaturated Field Soil EA-5939 Interim Report (RP2485-6); $32.50 Signal Processing for Steam Generator Experimental Simulation of a Small­ Inspection Contractor: University of California at Riverside Scale Babcock & Wilcox Reactor Model EPRI Project Manager: D. McIntosh NP-5773 Interim Report (RPS404-10); $25 NP-5811 Final Report (RP2304-1); $40 Contractor: Combustion Engineering, Inc. Contractor: SRI International EPRI Project Managers: M. Avioli, C Welty EPRI Project Manager: J. Kim NUCLEAR POWER Environmental Effects on Components: A Proof-of-Concept Transient Validation of Soil-Structure Commentary for ASME Section Ill Diagnostic Expert System for BWRs Interaction Models, Using In-Plant NP-5775 Final Report (RP1757-61); $25 NP-5827-SR Special Report; $32.50 Test Data From Japan Contractor: Structural Integrity Associates, Inc. EPRI Project Manager: J. Naser NP-5739 Final Report (RP1444-5); $32.50 EPRI Project Manager: S. Tagart Contractor: Bechtel Group, Inc. EPRI Project Managers: Y. Tang, H. Tang Proceedings: Fifth International RETRAN Conference PLANNING AND EVALUATION Performance Assessment for Low-Level NP-5781-SR Proceedings; $85 Waste Disposal Facilities EPRI Project Manager: L. Agee EPRI Fuel Forecast Review, Vol. 1: NP-5745M Interim Report (RP2691-1); $25 1984-1986 Research Results NP-5745SP Interim Report; $20,000 Effects of the 1985 Mexico Earthquake P-5711 Final Report (RP2369-20) Contractor: Rogers and Associates on Power and Industrial Facilities Contractor: Putnam, Hayes & Bartlett, Inc. Engineering Corp. NP-5784 Final Report (RP2848-6); $32.50 EPRI Project Manager: H. Mueller EPRI Project Manager: R. Shaw Contractor: EOE Inc. EPRI Project Manager: R. Kassawara Capital Requirements for the U.S. Evaluation of Simulator Discrepancies Investor-Owned Electric Utility Industry: on the Basis of Operational Impact Trends in Computer Technology 1985-2005 NP-5746 Final Report (RP2054-2); $25 NP-5785 Final Report (RP885-9); $25 P-5830 Final Report (RP1920-3); $25 Contractor: General Physics Corp. Contractor: The Power Computing Co. Contractor: Putnam, Hayes & Bartlett, Inc. EPRI Project Manager: R. Colley EPRI Project Manager: J. Naser EPRI Project Manager: S. Chapel

54 EPRI JOURNAL October/November 1988 FOWL: Fossil Fuel Combustion Waste Leaching New Version 1.12 (IBM-PC); EA-5742-CCM CALENDAR Contractor: Battelle, Pacific Northwest Laboratories EPRI Project Manager: lshwar Murarka Foradditional information on the meetings Computer listed below, please contact the person FUELBURN: EPRI Fuel Burn Forecasting System indicated. Software Version 1.0 (IBM-PC) Contractor: Applied Decision Analysis, Inc. DECEMBER EPRI Project Manager: Howard Mueller The Electric Power Software Center (EPSC) provides a single distribution center for computer programs 5-7 developed by EPRI. The programs are distributed MIDAS: Multiobjective Integrated Information and Automation Technology Decision Analysis System under license to users. No royalties are charged to for Serving Electric Utility Customers nonutility public service organizations in the United Version 1.1 (IBM-PC); P-5402 in the 1990s States, including government agencies, universities, Contractor: Mark S. Gerber Associates Scottsdale, Arizona and other tax-exempt organizations. Industrial orga­ EPRI Project Manager: Hung-Po Chao Contact: Veronika Rabi, (415) 855-2401 nizations, including nonmember electric utilities, are required to pay royalties. EPRI member utilities, in NORGE-P: Nuclear Reload Management paying their membership fees, prepay all royalties Version 4.4 (IBM-MVS, CDC) 7-9 Resolution of Seismic Issues Basic support in installing the codes is available at Contractor: S. Levy, Inc. in Low-Seismicity Regions no charge from EPSC; however, a consulting fee may EPRI Project Manager: Walter Eich be charged for extensive support. Orlando, Florida For more information about EPSC and licensing Contact Carl Stepp, (415) 855-2103 RELIEF: Customer Response to Interruptible arrangements, EPRI member utilities, government and Curtailable Rates agencies, universities, and other tax-exempt organi­ 13-14 zations should contact the Electric Power Software Version 1.0 (IBM-PC); EM-5630 Seminar: Competition and Competitive Center, Power Computing Co., 1930 Hi Line Drive, Contractor: Laurits R. Christensen Associates Assessment Methods Dallas, Texas 75207; (214) 655-8883. Industrial or­ EPRI Project Manager: Philip Hanser ganizations, including nonmember utilities, should Washington, D.C. contact EPRl's Manager of Licensing, PO Box RTGC: Calculating Rating of Temporary Contact: Sherman Feher, (415) 855-2838 10412, Palo Alto, California 94303; (415) 855-2866. Grounding Cables Version 1.0 (IBM-PC) 13-15 Contractor: Ontario Hydro Power System Operations: Research Needs DCMP: Methodology for the Integration EPRI Project Manager: Richard Kennon and Priorities of HVDC Links in Large AC Systems Dallas, Texas Version 1.1 (PRIME); EL-4365 SABCGPP: Simulator-Analyzer for Contact: David Curtice, (415) 855-2832 Contractor: Manitoba HVDC Research Center Binary-Cycle Geothermal Power Plants EPRI Project Manager: Mark Lauby Version 10 (IBM-PC); AP-5253 Contractor: ESSCOR MARCH DIRECT: Transient Energy Function Program EPRI Project Manager: Jonne Berning Version 1.2 (IBM, VAX); EL-4980 Contractor: Ontario Hydro SAFER: Stress and Fracture 7-9 EPRI Project Manager: Giora Ben-Yaacov Evaluation of Rotors Symposium: Energy Utilization Version 9.1 (VAX); EL-5593 San Francisco, California DTAC: Data Transfer and Conversion Contractor: EPRI NOE Center Contact: David Rigney, (415) 855-2419 Version 1.1 (IBM, VAX); EL-4294 EPRI Project Managers: James Edmonds, Contractor: Boeing Computer Services Ramaswan Viswanathan, Thomas McCloskey 7-9 EPRI Project Manager: Mark Lauby Solid-Particle Erosion in Steam Turbines SIMTRAN-E: A SIMULATE-E to New Orleans, Louisiana EFIAS: EPRI Fuel Inventory Access System RETRAN-02 Datalink Contact: Tom McCloskey, (415) 855-2655 Version 1.0 (IBM-PC); P-5724 Version MOD1 (IBM, CDC), NP-5509 Contractor: Lotus Consulting Group Contractor: El International EPRI Project Manager: Howard Mueller EPRI Project Manager: Walter Eich APRIL EXPOCALC: Exposure Measurement Tool SIMULATE-E: Three-Dimensional Steady-State for Transmission Line Electric Fields Analysis of LWR Power Reactors 18-20 Version 2.1 (IBM-PC); EA-5765 Version 3-A (IBM, CDC); NP-4574s-CCM Workshop: Coal Weighing and Sampling Contractor: Enertech Consultants, Inc. Contractor: S. Levy, Inc. St Louis, Missouri EPRI Project Manager: Stanley Sussman EPRI Project Manager: Robert Breen Contact: Clark Harrison, (412) 479-3503

FORECAST MASTER: Statistical SSSP: Small-Signal Stability Program Forecasting Package Version 1.0 (VAX); EL-5798 Version 2.1 (IBM-PC); EM-5309 Contractor: S. Levy, Inc. MAY Contractor: Business Forecast Systems EPRI Project Manager: Mark Lauby EPRI Project Manager: Ray Squitieri 2-4 TA NKS: Underground Tank Risk 4th National Conference on FORETELL: EPRI Forecasting Toolkit Management Model Demand-Side Management Version 10 (IBM-PC); EM-5095 Version 3.0 (IBM-PC) Cincinnati, Ohio Contractor: Burns & McDonnell Energy Co. Contractor: Decision Focus, Inc. Contact: Steven Braithwait, (415) 855-2606 EPRI Project Manager: Steven Braithwait EPRI Project Manager: Victor Niemeyer

EPRI JOURNAL October/November 1988 55 Authors and Articles engineering from Rensselaer Poly­ Tom Schneider, also a senior sci­ technic Institute and earned an MS ence adviser, has been with EPRI since from Syracuse University. • 1977; first as program manager for en­ ergy storage, then as director of the irections in Exploratory Re­ Energy Utilization and Conservation D search (page 16) was written by Technology Department, and recently Ralph Whitaker, Journal feature editor, (on loan) as president of the Lighting with background supplied by four Research Institute. Prior to working at Iveson Kalhammer EPRI specialists in exploratory re­ EPRI, he worked as a research phys­ search management. icist at New Jersey's Public Service Fritz Kalhammer, an EPRI vice pres­ Electric & Gas Co. for four years. Sch­ ident and the director of the Energy neider has a BS in science from Ste­ Management and Utilization Division vens Institute of Technology and a Maulbetsch since 1979, has also been responsible PhD in physics from the University of for directing exploratory research for Pennsylvania. the past two years. He came to EPRI in Sy Alpert, named Research Fellow 1973 to guide R&D in fuel cells and bat­ in January 1988, has been at EPRI since tery energy storage. Formerly he was 1973, first as technical director for syn­ with SRI International for 12 years, thetic fuels and later as technical direc­ Schneider Alpert where he managed the electrochem­ tor for the Advanced Power Systems istry program. Kalhammer has BS and Division. Before he came to EPRI, Al­ MS degrees in physics and a PhD in pert had worked for 15 years at Hy­ physical chemistry from the Univer­ drocarbon Research, Inc., and briefly sity of Munich. for Chem Systems and SRI Interna­ McGowin John Stringer, manager of the Ma­ tional. Alpert graduated in chemical terials Support Program, helped or­ engineering from the Polytechnic In­ ganize EPRI's exploratory research stitute of Brooklyn and earned an MS program and initially served as its in economics at Rutgers. • technical director. He came to EPRI in upercomputers for the Utility Fu­ 1977 from the University of Liverpool, nergy From Waste: Recovering a Sture (page 4) was written by John where he had taught for 17 years, Throwaway Resource (page 26) Douglas, science writer, with guid­ eventually heading the metallurgy wasE written by Anne Knight, science ance from Bob Iveson, staff technical and materials science department. writer, in cooperation with Charles adviser for EPRI's Electrical Systems Stringer holds bachelor and doctoral McGowin of EPRI's Coal Combustion Division. degrees in engineering from Liver­ Systems Division. Iveson is responsible for strategies pool. McGowin, who is the division's in transmission research, including John Maulbetsch, one of two senior technical manager for analysis, also matters of computer architecture, soft­ science advisers for exploratory re­ manages R&D on municipal solid ware development, artificial intelli­ search, was named to that post after waste conversion and the economics gence, and mathematics. For nine 12 years with the Coal Combustion of fluidized-bed combustion. Before years, until last February, he had man­ Systems Division, where he succes­ joining EPRI in 1976, he was a senior aged the Power System Planning and sively managed programs in heat, research engineer with Shell Develop­ Operations Program. He was previ­ waste, water management, and air ment Co. for seven years. He gradu­ ously with New York State Electric & quality control. He previously worked ated in applied science from Lehigh Gas Corp. for 20 years, including nine for seven years as a research director University and also earned a BS in years as supervisor of transmission with Dynatech Corp. Maulbetsch chemical engineering there. He has planning for the New York Power earned BS, MS, and PhD degrees in MS and PhD degrees from the Univer­ Pool. Iveson graduated in electrical mechanical engineering at MIT. sity of Pennsylvania. •

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