PAL Turbine Services, LLC.

PAL Turbine Services, LLC. PAL Turbine Services, LLC. CENTURIES OF EXPERIENCE! If you have never used our services, you still may have heard of us. PAL began providing gas turbine services.

Leaders in the Gas and Steam Turbine Industry PAL Turbine Services offers a cadre of senior GE-trained field service and factory engineers, who collectively have over 500 years of experience in the power industry. PAL Turbine Services, LLC offers a cadre of GE-trained field service and factory engineers, who collectively have over 500 years of turbine experience to meet your service needs. We be

lieve that PAL offers the power generation industry unparalleled depth and breadth of gas and steam turbine and generator technical expertise. Most of our knowledge and field experience came during our GE years, as well as elsewhere in the industry during the twentieth century, to the benefit of clients in the twenty-first. During our GE days, we wore many hats: senior field engineer, area engineer, manager of field services and lead technical advisors. We trained over 1000 field engineers at the Field Engineering Development Center. Dave Lucier managed the Field Engineering Program (FEP, 1980-83), as well as being a lead technical trainer in Fuel Regulator and Speedtronic™ control systems. Charlie Pond, Al Shuman, John Mitchell and Doug Lemmo were training specialists on gas and steam turbine maintenance and installations at the Center. Chances are GE field engineers who have provided services for you in the past are graduates of the FEP during our tenure. Furthermore, since leaving GE, we've taught hundreds of on-site training schools and multi-client seminars, in addition to our main responsibilities as turbine field engineers. In recent years, several ex-GE factory and field engineers have joined the PAL team. Thus, we have been able to broaden our services into steam turbine and generator field engineering. Please refer to the COMPANY sub-tab called PAL resumes to see some of the faces and profiles of our expert staff. They are all recognized experts. Mechanical and electrical field engineering services on GE turbines and generators are PAL specialties. Since forming PAL in 1999, we have been providing field engineering services and expert technical support on overhauls and installations. Because our team has the know-how and our overhead is low, we can keep our rates very competitive. Our reaction time is designed to be immediate with our Turbine Online Problem Solving (TOPS) services, particularly when an unforeseen outage takes you down. We are proud of our reputation throughout the power industry. Ask our other valued clients about us. PAL also offers other services: fuel and control system upgrades, consultations on bid specifications, insurance investigations, root cause failure analysis, borescope inspections and interpretation of OEM conversions, modifications and upgrades (CMU). When you hire PAL, you get the expertise of us all! No one in the industry has better intra-company communications. We work together to try to solve your field problems. Call on PAL Turbine Services for all your turbine and generator needs. The experience will be worth it!

01/06/2024

980721

01/02/2024

To all GE gas turbine owners/operators:

* I am now retired after 50+ years providing Field Engineering Services (FES). However, I do continue to answer consult with service providers, respond to urgent calls and provide Frame 5 reconditioned fuel pumps that i have in storage. 🤠

* I worked in 20 countries and 30+ states and territories like the Caribbean (PR & USVI). 👍

* I had a great 20-year career with GE for which I am grateful for the training, trust and opportunity.

* BTW: That allowed me to pay off my college debt in just ONE payment !!! My mom was very pleased that we were debt free.

* With Charlie Pond (diseased), our company, Pond and Lucier, LLC (aka PAL Turbine Services, LLC) we provided FES for over 25 years on GE gas and small steam turbines. Clients shortened it to call us PAL! 🤠

Call or text if you need help or guidance:

Cel: (518) 330-4801.
Email still: [email protected]
Gmail: [email protected]

Adios, amigos. Happy 2024. 🎉 🤩 🎊

05/14/2021

Did you know?

Most owner/operators do not want to run their emergency & peaking power plants. They sit idle in standby mode, only wanting to run them on a semi-annual basis (summer/winter runs), when they have to prove their "Availability & Reliability."

Of course, like the 20-year old Chevy in the driveway, it might not heed the call to start (particularly in an emergency) when there is a need for a hospital run.

When it comes to gas turbines, when they don't start on command, my phone sometimes rings or an email comes expecting me to click it open.

Management of power plants don't want to WASTE the fuel starting the turbine when it is not actually needed. FOOLS! The time to start/test/confirm the viability is not on the day it is needed. That might be 2 hot weeks in the summer and one cold period in the winter.

My advice: put the unit in the FIRE mode and issue a start signal (locally) and observe what happens. For instance, for a GE Frame 5, the amount of fuel consumed during a one-minute firing cycle is only about 3 to 5 gallons! If you take a walk around the unit looking into the accessory and combustion compartments, you might burn 20 gallons. At $3 bucks per gallon, that is not much money.
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More importantly, all of the protective devices are armed during firing. Also, the fuel system is stroked and the components tested (fuel pump or gas valves) which is good to know. At least 50 percent of the devices are "tested" in a firing cycle.

Tell management that you will only use about 3 gpm to test and another 15 gallons during your "walk around" to assure there are no fuel leaks or fires.

DO IT. Argue the fact that a "test is worth 1000 expert opinions." Just saying...

Are you a graduate of GE's field engineering program (FEP) when it was run at the FEDC in Niskayuna, NY?  That would be ...
05/03/2021

Are you a graduate of GE's field engineering program (FEP) when it was run at the FEDC in Niskayuna, NY? That would be from its founding in 1975 through the end of the century to the time when it was "uprooted" and moved to Houston, TX at the GE service shop there.

Charles "Tip" Thomas had a vision as the VP of Installation & Services Engineering (I&SE) back in the 1960s. He recognized that most college graduates in engineering disciplines suffered from lack of the skills and experience that makes good GE field engineers, Specifically "hands on" knowledge needed to lead work crews on steam, gas and generator installations and overhauls. We were deficient, except for those engineers who graduated from merchant marine academies, co-op programs and other practical engineering schools.

So what was so wrong with the beautiful FEDC building and the program envisioned? Nothing. I walked the bike path that curls behind the FEDC building yesterday and stood there in that pastoral setting. I remarked to my wife: it was the best job I ever had teaching & managing the FEP Entry Level Training Program (1977-1983). What a great program we had (18 instructors), most former field engineers).

Now it is all about training Wind Turbine personnel, I am told. The two photos below show a "rear view" of the buildings from the bike path, I mentioned. The electrical training was done in the 2-story wing on the left. The Frame 7F building on the right once the home of a "repatriated" gas turbine brought there for training from Korea. All this gave me a rather sad feeling. :-(

04/15/2021

In this era of efficacy assurance, have clients realized that gas turbine power generation is a viable alternative when the lights go out? That is, when the need for quick response to high demand, the existing generating base (emergency & peaking power plants) should not be discounted (nay not eliminated) in this GREEN mentality the pervades the USA.

03/15/2021

If you don't maintain your gas turbines they will fail to start when you need them. Starting & operating GE frame size turbines that were initially purchased for the purpose of providing "emergency & peaking power" should not be left to when those situations arise. The unit should be started and run up to speed & base load at least on a quarterly basis.

Letting them sit idle would be foolish, but it is a practice I am seeing more and more, particularly when assets change owners. New owners seldom focus on these assets, particularly if operator personnel (who know) are not retained by new owners.

Just saying...

03/04/2021

From what I have read and observed, the power generation crisis in Texas seems to be related to three things:

1. Poor maintenance practices of existing power generating equipment. FACT!

2. Not removing moisture from gas pipelines feeding the boilers and gas turbines that froze "choking off" fuel flow. SPECULATIVE!

3. Wind turbine blades, nacelles and towers not having surface "heat tracing" to prevent ice build up (like happens on aircraft wings). UNLIKE TUG HILL PLATEAU in Upstate NY.

From what I read, to make things worse, the state is not interconnected to adjacent states (like Oklahoma) to accept incoming power to alleviate the crisis during the frigid week or 10 day period. MIGHT BE WRONG, it is a "Texas Thing."

Texans liked the low cost of power before the crisis. What do think today of this criminal "frugality" now, when power lines go down and there is no drinking water? WHO WOULDN'T? Nothing ever fails if left idle. Hmmmmm.

02/18/2021

In November 1965, the northeastern USA suffered a blackout that lasted about 12 hours. General Electric had a product called the package power plant (PPP) that consisted of a 12 MW gas turbine power plant, dual fuel (natural gas & distillate oil), diesel start that could be up and on line in 7 minutes and at base load in 5 more minutes. This assumes that the adjacent tank was full of #2 distillate oil and the control batteries were fully charged.

This GE product languished in sales since it was invented in 1961. Only a few were shipped in the five years before the blackout. Remote locations like Rutland and Ascutney, VT and Southampton, NY on the tip of Long Island. A few others like one in South Carolina.

By 1970, a mere 5 years later, GE was selling nearly 100 plants in single, dual and 4-unit power blocks. Many electric utilities around the country realized how little emergency and peaking power capability they had in reserve. ConEd in New York bought 48 of for floating barges in Brooklyn. CommEd in Chicago bought 68 units. I was involved in the installation and start-up of a dozen units at Crawford Station as a young field engineer in 1968.

ARE YOU READING THIS, TEXAS?

Yes, in "black start" mode, these small plants ran on FOSSIL FUEL (distillate oil). Shame, shame!

They could be started remotely in emergencies and meet peak demand for a couple of weeks in the winter cold or summer heat as needed. Most shut down on weekends when demand for power was low.

I feel sorry for the people of Texas in this cold snap and power failures. But not the power producers and "wheeler dealers" who have exploited the systems. Texans pride themselves with having an isolated and independent power grid in their "typical bragging" fashion.

Now how does cheap power in Texas that look to you now?

01/16/2021

Going "digital" with control systems when upgrading legacy power plants can be a dubious decision. Older GE Speedtronic or Fuel Regulator systems (as installed) accord an element of isolation that allows them to start and operate locally, if necessary. In their original state, they remain apart from the computerized world that may have an advantage: foreign interruptions (read Russian, China, Iran, etc here) cannot impact the starting and operation in an emergency.

Blackouts caused by weather or nefarious means sometimes require "black start" features to restore the grid. These older GE package power plants (PPP) are designed to start when an undervoltage relay de-energizes, bringing the turbine up to 100% speed ready to "synch" to the grid or dead bus.

It has happened. Remember back to the Great Northeast Blackout of November 1965? A small PPP on the tip of Long Island is credited with restoring the grid in that incident. Just saying...

A

Fuel system components FOR SALE.  These are all "reconditioned" to factory standards and ready to ship ASAP.  Not new ol...
11/29/2020

Fuel system components FOR SALE. These are all "reconditioned" to factory standards and ready to ship ASAP. Not new old stock (N.O.S.) components:
*OilGear fuel pumps (2)
* Young & Franklin fuel regulators (1)
* NY Airbrake fuel pumps with electric clutches (2),
* Roper flow divider,
*flex hoses for conversions.

Contact Pond and Lucier, LLC at (518) 330-4801 or email: [email protected].

Address

144 Langley Road
Amsterdam, NY
12010

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