The following is a small selection of items recently published by EPRI. To view complete lists of your company-funded research reports, updates, software, training announcements, and other program deliverables, log in at www.epri.com and go to Program Cockpits.
For decades, power companies and other stakeholders have measured the toxic chemical content of the wastes from fossil-fuel power plants, but staff turnover can lead to loss of institutional memory regarding these measurements. To provide access to these data, EPRI created and maintains the Power Plant Toxics Measurements Database, an online resource with more than 450,000 chemical measurements. This report covers the purpose, structure, and content of the database.
Researchers extracted empirical data from a comprehensive literature review of safety performance factors and conducted a statistical analysis to identify the factors with the highest potential to be safety differentiators. A panel of electric utility occupational health and safety leaders identified potential factors to supplement current knowledge. Researchers then developed an approach to measure these differentiators. This was reviewed by the industry panel and revised based on its recommendations.
This report surveyed and categorized emerging and commercially available ‘beneficiation’ technologies, which are used to process coal combustion products to meet specifications for various beneficial uses in construction, manufacturing, agriculture, and other industries. Researchers focused on assessing limitations of carbon reduction technologies that enable use of fly ash in concrete. Drawing on vendor data and sources, researchers estimated capital and operating costs of these technologies.
Oxide deposits in a generator’s stator cooling water system can reduce cooling water flow, increase operating temperature, and lead to generator load reductions and even failures. Improper ‘layup’ practices for taking this cooling water system off-line can contribute to oxide deposits. This report discusses best layup practices.
A 2018 EPRI analysis identified the failure modes for steady-state and cycling generators and ranked each failure mode based on severity, probability of occurrence, and detectability. This study investigated additional sensors and analytical capabilities that could improve detection of the top five failure modes.
This research compares the effectiveness of phased array imaging and full matrix capture techniques for weld inspection, processing images of a common set of samples.
Instrument penetrations in a nuclear plant’s reactor pressure vessel are susceptible to a type of degradation called stress corrosion cracking. This handbook supports actions to address this concern, including assessment of nondestructive examination and repair options and related engineering analyses.
Drawing on survey data from six nuclear power utilities, this research developed probabilistic methods for decision making for balance-of-plant components during off-normal conditions.
Researchers examined the impacts of challenging combustion conditions (such as flexible operations) and low-quality fuels on the performance of post-combustion pollution control devices. They developed and demonstrated methods and technologies to minimize the negative impacts.
This is a series of 10 brief papers about building data science capabilities at power companies. Topics include engaging stakeholders to guide strategy; selecting the right applications; increasing data science adoption; transforming legacy data into useful assets; data collection and sharing; and more.
Deployment of energy storage can potentially enable utilities to defer or avoid the need for traditional grid upgrades, but it can be challenging to evaluate storage as part of distribution planning. This report provides guidance for distribution planners on how to effectively evaluate energy storage to mitigate system overloads or cases where grid components have insufficient capacity to deliver energy to meet customer demand.
Using customer propensity models to account for customer preferences can help utility system planners refine their forecasts of grid-connected distributed energy resources (DER). This report provides guidance to distribution planners, load forecasters, and researchers seeking to use customer propensity models in their DER adoption forecasts.
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