Speech Day

“A View of Murton Colliery near Seaham, County Durham” (1843) / John Wilson Carmichael

The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) has registered a Project Initiation Notification with ANSI to launch a revision to its consensus product ASME PM-202x, Performance Monitoring for Power Plants.  This product should interest stakeholders in involved in college and universities with district energy plants — facility management staffs, consulting engineers, operations and maintenance staff.

From the project prospectus:

These Guidelines cover fossil-fueled power plants, gas-turbine power plants operating in combined cycle, and a balance-of-plant portion including interface with the steam supply system of nuclear power plants.  They include performance monitoring concepts, a description of various methods available, and means for evaluating particular applications.

Since the original publication of these Guidelines in 1993—then limited to steam power plants—the field of performance monitoring (PM) has gained considerable importance.  The lifetime of plant equipment has been improved, while economic demands have increased to extend it even further by careful monitoring.  The PM techniques themselves have also been transformed, largely by the emergence of electronic data acquisition as the dominant method of obtaining the necessary information.

These Guidelines present:

• “Fundamental Considerations”—of PM essentials prior to the actual application, so you enter fully appraised of all the requirements, potential benefits and likelihood of tradeoffs of the PM program. 

• “Program Implementation”—where the concepts of PM implementation, diagnostics and cycle interrelationships have been brought into closer conjunction, bringing you up-to-date with contemporary practice.

• “Case Studies / Diagnostic Examples”—from the large amount of experience and historical data that has been accumulated since 1993.

Intended for employees of power plants and engineers involved with all aspects of power production.

From ANSI’s PINS registry:

Project Need: This document is being developed in order to address performance monitoring and optimization techniques for different power generating facilities. The latest trends and initiatives in performance monitoring as well as practical case studies and examples will be incorporated.

Stakeholders: Designers, producers/manufacturers, owners, operators, consultants, users, general interest, laboratories, regulatory/government, and distributors.

This document will cover power generation facilities including steam generators, steam turbines, and steam turbine cycles (including balance of plant of nuclear facilities), gas turbines, and combined cycles. The guidelines include performance monitoring concepts, a description of various methods available, and means for evaluating particular applications.

No drafts open for public consultation at this time.   The PINS announcement was placed on October 11th*.   The PINS registry is a stakeholder mapping platform that identifies the beginning of a formal process that may interest other accredited, competitor standards developers.   Many ASME consensus products may be indirectly referenced in design guidelines and construction contracts with the statement “Conform to all applicable codes”

The landing page for the ASME standards development enterprise is linked below:

ASME C&S Connect

Note that you will need to set up a (free) account to access this and other ASME best practice titles.

We maintain all ASME consensus products on the standing agenda of our periodic Mechanical and Energy teleconferences.   See our CALENDAR for the next online meeting; open to everyone.

University of Michigan

Issue: [19-148]

Category: District Energy, Energy, Mechanical

Colleagues: Richard Robben, Larry Spielvogel

LEARN MORE:

* ANSI Standards Action

Boiler & Pressure Vessel Code