"I am trying to save a company"?
Musical Chairs FirstEnergy's "I am trying to save a company" CEO Chuck Jones is basically saying I think bankruptcy is right around the corner.
The trajectory the company now is in we end in bankruptcy.
How can this be good for their nukes?
Is the absolute stupidity with repetitive component failures really insufficient budgets. Is the lack of money making the nuclear plant staff look stupid beyond belief...
Basically they talked themselves into it's safe to operate a large electric motor with the oil level barely visible in the sightglass.
There has been repetitive and notable big events at this plant in recent years. These guys are struggling and have gotten behind the eight ball…
Just out how these electric utility CEOs are making millions of dollar in salaries just recklessly jumping into one speculative pipe dream after another. I always thought preparing for deregulation and the resultant budget cutting cause the Davis Besse near disaster. Davis Besse hole in the head came in early 2002.
Deregulation. Consumer choice. Restructuring. No matter what you call it, the 4.8 million customers of Ohio’s largest electric utilities have been free to pick their power supplier since 2001.
The euphemism of re-regulation here is stranded assets. Going into deregulation they thought it would make the nukes worthless. So they allowed utilities to write off the value of the nuke plant...make the ratepayer pay for their mistakes. You get it, now because natural gas is so cheap, they want to re-regulate. Effectively stranded assets the coal and nuclear plants again. I mean, how many times can they stranded asset a nuclear plant.
FirstEnergy wants Ohio to end deregulation, return to state-controlled rates
By John Funk, The Plain Dealer
The Plain Dealer
Posted on July 28, 2015 at 5:11 PM, updated July 29, 2015 at 2:27 PM
Sammis is FirstEnergy's last Ohio coal-fired plant and its closing could force the company to build more long-distance transmission lines -- paid for by customers -- to bring power here from Pennsylvania and other states. Associated Press fil
AKRON -- FirstEnergy Corp. wants Ohio to re-regulate the electric utility industry, hoping to end an era the company itself fought for just seven years ago, in which electricity rates were set by wholesale markets without interference from the state.
"I would do it in a heartbeat," said Chuck Jones, CEO since January, in an interview with The Plain Dealer's editorial board. "I think it makes sense. I am trying to save a company."
Jones said FirstEnergy's future is at risk if it cannot convince the state's Public Utilities Commission to force ratepayers to cover the full cost of electricity from two of its huge coal and nuclear plants, even if other sources of electricity, such as natural gas, would be cheaper for consumers.
At the time of the last big battle over deregulation, in 2008, the company seemed likely to prosper because its coal-fired plants were among the cheapest sources of electricity in the state.
Since then, the development of horizontally drilled and hydraulic fractured gas wells has helped push down the price of a thousand cubic feet of natural gas, from more than $10 in the spring of 2008 to about $2.80 today. FirstEnergy's stock price tumbled from a high of more than $82 on June 1, 2008, to $32.80 at the end of trading on Tuesday.
Jones said the company is not currently working with any lawmakers to write a re-regulation bill, but added that the first step toward returning to regulation is for the Public Utilities Commission to approve the company's pending rate case.
That case includes a 15-year power purchase agreement to have FirstEnergy's local distribution companies Ohio Edison, the Illuminating Co. and Toledo Edison buy all of the power generated by the Davis-Besse nuclear plant and the coal-fired H.R. Sammis plant, at whatever it cost to generate.
Those generating costs are currently higher than the wholesale price of power on the grid, where gas-fired power plants are the low-cost producers. The company admits the deal would cost customers money in the first three years but argues that over the 15-year lifetime of the contracts, it would save about $2 billion because natural gas won't remain at today's rock bottom prices.
Critics of the plan, including the Ohio Consumers Counsel and the Northeast Ohio Public Utilities Council, or NOPEC, argue the deal would cost customers an extra $3 billion.
However long-term prices play out, the plan would ensure that the company would not lose money by operating the plants. In filings before the PUCO, the company's experts have argued that without the special power purchase contract the company may be forced to close them.
Sammis is the company's last Ohio coal-fired plant, said Jones, and its closing would force the company to build more long-distance transmission lines -- paid for by customers -- to bring power here from Pennsylvania and other states.
Jones said he has talked to Gov. John Kasich about the company's current situation. "We talked very frankly about the the kind of tenuous position FirstEnergy is in and he asked me four times what can they do to help.
I am trying to save a company.
"My answer four times was it's not your problem. It's my problem. The only thing I will ever ask you for is a fair chance to tell our story, a fair chance to have our case heard. And if we can't do it in a convincing manner, then shame on us.
"I am not asking the state for anything," he said.
But, apart from the rate-settting case, the company did ask for something from the state just a year ago.
It convinced legislators to remove the state mandate, in place since 2009, that forced power companies to help their customers use less power annually by buying energy efficiency technologies, and a parallel rule requiring power companies to sell an increasing percentage of "green power" annually.
Senate Bill 310, which Kasich signed into law in June 2014, froze those mandates for two years while lawmakers decided what to do next.
The chairman of the special committee studying the issue recently said it does not want to permanently freeze the mandates.
Jones said the energy efficiency programs FirstEnergy was forced to put in place were paid for by customers through higher rates, but benefited only those companies and consumers who could afford to buy new energy efficient products -- everything from new production line motors to new home appliances.
He said another way has to be developed to pay for energy efficiency programs, but did not offer any specific plan.
He said FirstEnergy is not opposed to renewable energy but believes that it must be "feathered in" slowly because wind and solar power production is not constant and therefore cannot be counted on.
And building solar arrays on buildings and homes is the least efficient way to add solar, he said.
"If you want solar energy the most efficient way to get solar energy is to have the utility build it for you," he said. "And build it in 200-300-400 megawatt solar farms."
A regulated power company could do that, Jones said, because it could add the costs to its rate base, just as the industry did for the first 85 years of its existence.
Check out how many times they revised the so called safe sight glass oil level until they felt it was at a adequate level to destroy the motor.
It is actually pretty funny. I wonder how much this motor and outage cost them? Then they are whining to the politicians about they are not making enough money on the grid.
The root
cause evaluation determined that responses to technical questions were provided
without the appropriate technical rigor or validation of assumptions regarding
acceptable oil level for the pump motor. This resulted in an incorrect change
in the oil level sight glass configuration and continued operation of the motor
with the oil level below the vendor recommended minimum level until bearing
failure.
Replacement
of the condensate pump motor. (Complete)
Follow-Up of
Events and Notices of Enforcement Discretion (71153 – 1 sample)(Closed)
Licensee Event Report (LER) 05000334/2015-001-00: Manual Reactor Trip and Automatic
Auxiliary Feedwater Actuation Due to Condensate Pump Motor Failure
On April 15,
2015, FENOC manually tripped Unit 1’s reactor
Unit 1 began the inspection period at 100 percent power. On April 15, 2015, operators inserted a manual reactor trip after the ‘A’ condensate pump tripped on overcurrent. Operators returned the plant to 48 percent power with one condensate pump in operation on April 17 and remained at that power until the plant shutdown for 1R23 on April 24.
at 85 percent power following a
condensate pump trip. Prior to the trip, the unit was performing an emergent
power reduction after the identification of a degrading condition on the ‘A’
condensate pump motor. All control rods fully inserted into the core and the
auxiliary feedwater system actuated as designed. The unit was stabilized in
Mode 3 with main feedwater in service and auxiliary feedwater secured.
Introduction.
A Green self-revealing finding was identified for FENOC‘s failure to correct a
low oil level in the Unit 1 ‘A’ condensate pump lower motor bearing in
accordance with NOP-LP-2001, “Corrective Action Program.” Specifically, FENOC
failed to execute the work order to add oil to the ‘A’ condensate pump motor
and, instead, installed a placard on the oil level sight glass with improper
oil level indications. This led to the motor bearing failure, which caused the pump
to trip on overcurrent, and required the operators to insert a manual reactor
trip.
Description.
In November 2013, the Unit 1 ’A’ condensate motor was replaced due to moisture
intrusion. During
Water destroyed it in 2013 and they replaced it with a leaking oil defective motor. The old normalization of deviance. These guys are having shutdowns every time you turn around.
initial oil filling and motor operation, oil leaked around the
motor shaft. After contacting the vendor, FENOC determined that the correct oil
level was at the bottom of the oil sight glass. During the forced outage in
January
Luckily they destroyed the main transformer (preventable and poor quality) in early 2014 in order to set up the destruction of the condensate pump in 2015 through intentionally starving the bearing of oil. It is notable the turbine driven aux main feed pump tripped on mysterious oscillations(LER 2014-002-00) when the main transformer got destroyed. And the TDAFW pump had been unreliable for years over improper symptom diagnosing and poor maintenance.
The idea I can link all these preventable things together is very dangerous. This is a cultural problem. Who owns these guys? Oh man, FirstEnergy stock has been dropping like a stone since 2012.
***Who in a recent presidential debate accused
Ohio governor John Kasich with getting bailed out over the miraculous Marcellus
shale natural gas fracking economic development boom. Wasn’t it Donald Trump who
posed the insult to the Ohio governor? They got so much gas being produced in the
Marcellus field the transmission pipes are overloaded with gas production…the oil
wells can’t produce as much as they want. The Marcellus shale is the most
productive oil/gas field in the world. Ohio sits right on top of the field. You got to wonder if all this cheap
natural gas is degrading nuclear safety across industry.
FirstEnergy's stock price high just before our stock market and real estate 2009 collapse was $83. It is a historic collapse of a electric utility stock price. Today they are struggling at maintaining $30 a stare. How much of their nuclear plants are effectively stranded assist?
2014, the sight glass was replaced with one that has a lower viewing
window and a placard was attached with minimum and maximum oil levels. In May
2014, a notification was written to add oil to the motor because oil level in
the lower motor bearing had dropped to the minimum level.
The notification was
incorrectly closed to an existing outage work order for the motor. A second
notification was written in June 2014 to add oil to the motor which was
converted into a work order and assigned a priority in accordance with
NOP-WM-1003. Three additional notifications were written in July 2014 to add oil
to the motor. In August 2014, CR 2014-13579 was written to identify that motor
lower bearing oil level was below minimum. In September 2014, the
superintendent of work planning took ownership to resolve the issue identified
in the condition report and incorrectly determined that oil should not be added
until the oil level reaches the bottom of the sight glass. This was based on
the assumption that the original sight glass was installed. The existing work
order and notifications were cancelled, and a corrective action was initiated
to install a new placard on the sight glass to show a minimum oil level at the
bottom of the sight glass.
In February 2015, the old placard was removed and
the new placard was installed. On April 15,
2015, the control room received a high temperature alarm on the condensate pump
lower motor bearing. Operators reported oil misting, smoke, and high vibrations
at the motor. Operations commenced an unplanned power reduction to 85 percent
power. The motor tripped on overcurrent, causing operations to insert a manual
reactor trip in accordance with their loss of feedwater procedure.
The
inspectors determined that the corrective actions implemented to resolve CR
2014-13579 were not in accordance with NOP-LP-2001. Section 4.2.3 of NOP-LP-2001
states that condition report/correct action owners should ensure that actions
are developed to resolve the primary cause identified in the condition report.
The corrective action implemented did not resolve the low oil level in the
motor.
Analysis.
The inspectors determined that failure to correct the low oil level condition
in the ‘A’ condensate pump motor lower bearing in accordance with NOP-LP-2001,
was a performance deficiency that was within the capability of FENOC to foresee
and correct, and therefore should have been prevented. The performance
deficiency was more-than-minor because it was associated with the human
performance attribute of the Initiating Events cornerstone, and adversely
affected the cornerstone objective of limiting the likelihood of events that
upset plant stability and challenge critical safety functions during shutdown
as well as power operations. Specifically, cancelling the work order to add oil
to the motor bearing subsequently caused the operators to trip the plant when
the condensate pump motor bearing overheated due to oil starvation and the
motor tripped on overcurrent.
In
accordance with IMC 0609, Attachment 4, “Initial Characterization of Findings,”
issued June 19, 2012, and Exhibit 1 of IMC 0609, Appendix A, “The Significance
Determination Process (SDP) for Findings At-Power,” issued June 19, 2012, the
inspectors determined that this finding was of very low safety significance
(Green) because it did not cause a reactor trip and the loss of mitigation
equipment.
This finding
has a cross-cutting aspect in the area of Human Performance, Consistent
Process, because FENOC did not seek input from the appropriate work group
(engineering) prior to cancelling the work order to add oil to the condensate
pump motor [H.13].
Enforcement.
This finding does not involve enforcement action because no violation of a
regulatory requirement was identified. FENOC entered this issue into their
corrective action program as condition report 2015-05256. Because this finding
did not involve a violation and was of very low safety significance (Green), it
is identified as a FIN. (FIN 05000334/2015003-01, Failure to Correct a Low Oil
Level in the Condensate Pump Motor)
