Rotation 2 - Dynegy Marketing and Trade (DMT) - Projects Group (Corporate Headquarters in Houston, TX)

             During my second rotation, I was assigned to the DMT Projects Group in downtown Houston, TX.  A picture of the Wells Fargo Tower, where Dynegy's offices are located, is shown in the left column.  It is the second tallest skyscraper in Houston at 71 stories.  I can definitely vouch for the fact that there were some spectacular views from this building.  Dynegy's projects group manages the new gas turbine power plant construction projects that the company has ongoing throughout the United States.  This includes the management of contractural obligations of the EPC contractors for each of these plants as well as engineering support during the commissioning and testing of these plants.  The gas turbines being utilized are the Siemens Westinghouse 501F model turbines.  My roles during this rotation encompased field obligations as well as responsibilities back at the corporate headquarters.

Plant Commissioning

          I coordinated the commissioning of the fire protection system at the Renaissance Power Project in Carson City, MI  (Just outside of Lansing, MI).  This included serving as the liason for Dynegy to its insurance representatives, the local fire authorities, and system vendors during the plant testing.  I planned and coordinated a schedule to test each of the protection systems in the 4 gas turbine enclosures, mechanical packages, electrical packages, the plant control room, the power distribution building, and the diesel / electric fire water pumps.

           In addition to the fire protection system, I was involved with overall unit performance testing, emissions compliance testing, accoustical testing, and the approval of vendor turnover manuals.

          At the office in Houston,  I focused on an assignment to diagram the processes and procedures from the Mechanical Completion milestone to the Commercial Operation (COD) milestone for a new combined cycle gas turbine power plant.  Additionally, I performed a significant amount of research on EPC contractors, primary equipment vendors, and emerging emmissions technologies in preparation for a new, state of the art, coal-fired power plant.  This included researching new boiler designs such as CFB boilers and  flue gas emissions system configurations utilizing combinations of selective catalytic reduction systems (SCR's), electrostatic precipitators (ESP's), and scrubbers (wet ESP's).