Request Expert

Expert has expertise in multiple forms of energy generation, including steam boilers and gas turbine prime movers. He also has experience with gas and fuel oil reciprocating engine generators and small-head hydroelectric facilities. He is expert in the utility and non-utility power generation (independent power) industry. He has extensive experience in project management of the design, engineering, construction, start-up, and testing for fossil fuel power plants. He is also very experienced in the operation and maintenance management of hydro, biomass, and co-generation power plants. Expert is very knowledgeable concerning industrial and utility energy conservation. In addition, he is experienced in industrial energy management. Expert designed a state-of-the-art mobile gas turbine test rig. He is also knowledgeable regarding the utilization of brown coal (lignite) as fuel.

He has extensive experience with handling and storage of coal primarily for utility power plant use. He also has expertise with fire protection and dust suppression of coal handling systems. Expert has extensive expertise with overall power plant performance design including heat balance development and optimization. He is well versed in plant technology selection and margins of design to comfortably predict design capacity of power generation systems.

Expert has over 35 years of experience in the design, procurement and construction of electric power plants utilizing a variety of fossil fuels and biomass fuels. He is also experienced in the operation and maintenance of utility and non-utility large scale generating facilities. Expert has over 35 years of experience in the handling and storage and combustion of fossil fuels -- coal and biomass -- for the power generation industry. From brown coal in the Victorian (Australia) coalfields to bituminous coal in West Virginia and
biomass in the New England states. He is familiar with conveyor transportation and silo storage requirements, including dust suppression and fire protection considerations.

Expert's professional career of over 35 years has encompassed electric energy generation utilizing primarily fossil fuels. He is familiar with boiler and steam turbine utility and independent (private) power plants, as well as heavy fuel-oil diesel generating facilities. From conceptual design through detail design and construction, as well as operations and maintenance, he has specified performance and written specifications for the plant systems and major equipment. He has also performed due diligence studies to determine the
value of an existing facility for a potential buyer. Expert has undertaken the project management of several power generating plant construction projects, including biomass plants in Massachusetts and Maine. He has also provided independent engineer management for a heavy fuel-oil co-generation facility in Jamaica and technical expertise management for an energy center and utility tunnel project at a state university in Connecticut.

He continues to keep up to date on latest technology developments in the power industry. He has provided engineering expertise for selection of best applicable technology for fossil-fueled plants including biomass and rice hull fuels. His most recent assignment required him to evaluate the technical capabilities of a circulating fluidized bed (CFB) to burn high-alkaline and high-chlorine ash biomass fuels such as sugar cane tops and leaves and reed grasses. These fuels are known to cause significant fouling and slagging in the
boiler.

Expert has consulted on several occasions to perform an operability and maintainability review, including a review of available records and on-site inspections to report on the condition of an existing facility for sale. He has also performed this type of activity to prepare recommendations for upgrade and repair of a facility. Expert completed an audit of a 50 MW biomass plant in Vermont in accordance with requirements for a tri-annual audit stipulation requiring an independent report to the joint owners.

Expert has undertaken post project appraisals to report on the overall quality and operability of a power generation facility. This activity comes under the due diligence services he provides as a professional engineer with over 35 years experience in the power industry. He has written numerous proposals for the design and construction of power generation plants, primarily for lump-sum and engineer-procure-construction type contract projects. He has responded to request-for-proposal and also prepared unsolicited proposals driven by perceived customer need.

He has expertise in the design and construction of a variety of cogeneration facilities. These facilities primarily produce electricity and heat as a secondary byproduct. The heat, usually in the form of steam and hot water, is produced from the heat recovery cycle in the plant. Chilled water for air conditioning purposes can also be produced in an absorption chiller. The industrial application of cogeneration is also described as combined heat and power (CHP) systems. He has extensive experience in the design, construction and operation of combined-cycle electric power generating systems utilizing a variety of combustion gas turbines and heat recovery steam generators to produce high-pressure steam for an electric generating steam turbine. Major manufacturers of gas turbines include Siemens-Westinghouse, General Electric, Alstom, Mitsubishi and Solar Turbines. Other manufacturers include Pratt & Whitney and Rolls Royce.

Expert has specified all the major equipment included in an electric power generating plant. This includes the power island equipment and the balance-of-plant equipment. He has extensive experience in comparing manufacturers, quality and performance of equipment against price and reliability. He has negotiated with equipment suppliers to insure that scope of supply conforms to all requirements of the project, and design drawings and specifications are adequate for engineering purposes.

As a professional consulting engineer with 35 years of experience in the power industry, is also a trained mediator specializing in construction and contractual dispute resolution. Since 1998 he has successfully mediated disputes both during and after completion of projects in lieu of the parties proceeding with litigation or arbitration. The value of the disputes ranges from tens of thousands of dollars to millions of dollars. He also publishes a monthly newsletter addressing alternative dispute resolution (ADR) in the construction industry, and speaks at conferences and seminars.

Expert has been instrumental in the design, construction and performance testing of four biomass electric generating facilities ranging in size from 16 to 25 MW. He also was responsible for all operations and maintenance for one plant in Maine. The biomass included wood chips and clean demolition waste. His experience also covers the transportation, receiving, conveying, and storage of biomass as a boiler fuel for generating plants. More diverse biomass fuels such as sugar cane trash (leaves and tops) and reed grasses such as arundo donax are also included in his expertise.

Expert has extensive experience with biomass-fired boilers of various designs, including traveling grate, water-cooled vibrating grate, and bubbling fluid bed combustors. The sizes of boilers have ranged from 16 to 50 MW in steam generating electric output. He has also researched the use of burners and boiler designs suitable for rice hull fuel use in the Philippines. And he has studied the design features of circulating fluidized bed (CFB) boilers for high alkaline ash biomass fuels such as sugar cane leaves and tops and reed grasses such as arundo donax.

He has worked with a broad range of biomass fuels for power generation purposes. Starting with whole tree chips and bark and moving through demolition waste (clean) and even creosote railway ties. More recently he has evaluated rice hulls, sugar cane bagasse as well as sugar cane trash (leaves and tops) and agricultural grasses such as arundo donax as feedstock for biomass power generating facilities of under 20 MW size.

He provided technical review expertise and advisory services for a client in South East Asia building a mixed biomass fuel power generation plant. The facility will utilize a Circulating Fluidized Bed (CFB) boiler with design features suitable for high alkaline ash biomass such as sugar cane leaves and tops as well as reed grasses such as arundo donax. He acted as an expert to help a legal team prepare a technical defense following a steam leak accident injury in a steam vault at a State University in Massachusetts. Expert assisted a contractor in defending a claim case for an overrun of millions of dollars on an industrial major ventilation system project in Connecticut.He inspected a diesel generation facility in Guatemala, Central America, to evaluate operations and maintenance activities for a potential purchaser of the plant. Expert solved an operational problem of repeated breakage of an extensive pressurized hot water underground plastic pipe system for a major Federal prison in Pennsylvania.