New Brunswick Power Corporation (French: Société d’énergie du Nouveau-Brunswick), operating as NB Power (French: Énergie NB), is the primary electric utility in the Canadian province of New Brunswick. NB Power is a vertically-integrated Crown Corporation wholly owned by the Government of New Brunswick and is responsible for the generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity.: 3 NB Power serves all the residential and industrial power consumers in New Brunswick, with the exception of those in Saint John, Edmundston and Perth-Andover who are served by Saint John Energy, Energy Edmundston, and the Perth-Andover Electric Light Commission, respectively.
The Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) 2021 introduced a new fiscal framework for Nigeria's upstream petroleum sector, creating a need for reliable and efficient tools capable of evaluating petroleum investment opportunities under the evolving fiscal regime. However, conventional spreadsheet-based economic evaluation methods are often characterized by extensive manual computations, limited automation, and inadequate integration of risk and uncertainty analysis. This study developed and validated a Python-based Economic Evaluation and Investment Decision Support Tool (EEIDST) to provide an integrated digital framework for petroleum fiscal and economic evaluation under the PIA 2021. The study adopted a design, development, and validation methodology. The EEIDST integrates petroleum fiscal modelling, discounted cash flow analysis, economic evaluation, and sensitivity analysis within a unified analytical environment. The tool was designed to evaluate key economic indicators, including Net Present Value (NPV), Internal Rate of Return (IRR), Profitability Index (PI), Payback Period, Unit Capital Cost, Unit Operating Cost, Unit Technical Cost, and Government Take. Verification of the computational accuracy of the EEIDST framework was done using representative onshore petroleum project data with an independently developed Excel-based discounted cash flow model. Results showed a high level of agreement between the two model, with percentage errors for key economic indicators ranging from 0.01% to 3.73%, confirming the computational accuracy of the EEIDST model. Then validation of the reliability of the model was done through oil price and CAPEX sensitivity analysis and scenario-based analysis to determine if results from the model are logical and consistent with petroleum economic principles. The response of the EEIDST solution was consistent with established petroleum economic principles, where higher oil prices improved project profitability, higher capital costs reduced investment performance. The study concludes that the EEIDST provides a reliable, transparent, and automated platform for petroleum economic evaluation and investment decision support under Nigeria's PIA fiscal regime. The tool offers practical value to investors, petroleum operators, regulators, financial institutions, and policymakers.
Ensuring the safety of dams is paramount due to their significant economic worth and essential functions, including providing water for irrigation, generating hydroelectricity and managing floods. Yet, dams can degrade over time, potentially leading to diminished performance or catastrophic failure. Such failures can result in substantial economic losses, environmental calamities and loss of life. To enhance safety, it's crucial to regularly monitor dam performance using Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) techniques. The sporadic dynamic testing of dams has been a valuable method for assessing their structural integrity, aiding engineers in maintenance and safety decisions. However, these tests, typically performed on a case-by-case basis, rely on limited data and fail to capture changes in environmental or operational conditions. Understanding these effects is crucial for accurate assessment and mitigation strategies. To address this gap a study was performed on the Mactaquac Generating Station, utilizing full-scale monitoring data from the Mactaquac Life Achievement Project. An innovative analysis approach successfully identified and tracked modal parameters despite variations in operational and environmental conditions, identifying the first 7 modes over three years of vibration data.
Geomagnetically induced currents (GICs) are currents dominated by dc components that flow through grounding circuits into power systems. These currents are typically initiated by geomagnetic disturbances, and flow into power systems through power transformers with grounded windings. The flow of a GIC through a power transformer creates adverse impacts, including high levels of harmonic distortion in the currents flowing through the grounded windings, overheating of transformer windings, and significant disruptions in the reactive power flow through the affected transformer. Adverse impacts of GICs on power transformers depend on various factors, among which are the core design (multi-cores, 3-limb, or 5-limb), configuration of primary and secondary windings, and loading levels. This paper presents and discusses the effects of loading levels on the harmonic distortion due to GIC flows in power transformers. Tests are carried out using a laboratory power transformer with multi-core (three single phase transformers). Various values of GIC flows are tested for different loading levels. Test results conclude that the loading levels have minor ifluence on the harmonic distortion created by the GIC flow. In addition, test results show that the $2^{\rm{nd}}$ harmonic component remains the dominant harmonic component due to the GIC flow in a power transformer, regardless of the loading level.
The pressurizer module of the Point Lepreau real-time full scope simulator is modified by using a multiple-node model. In the new model, the pressurizer is divided into a number of control volumes. The vapor node consists of the control volumes where the vapor phase is continuous and liquid phase is dispersed, while each liquid node is a control volume where the liquid phase is continuous and vapor phase is dispersed. In the vapor node, the fluid is homogeneous and equilibrium, however, in any liquid node, the fluid is assumed to be in thermal equilibrium only. Liquid and vapor bubbles in the liquid node may have different velocity, and non-equilibrium exists among the liquid nodes and between the top liquid node and the vapor node. The mass, momentum and energy equations for the vapor-liquid mixture are applied to the vapor node and each of the liquid nodes. To take into account the velocity difference between the vapor bubbles and the liquid in the liquid nodes, the slip ratio is modeled. The new pressurizer module is integrated in the simulator. Some of the predictions from a number of transients are presented. The simulations are compared against available plant data and that of the previous two-node model. The comparisons show good agreement between the simulation by using the multiple-node model and the plant data. They also show significant improvements of the multiple-node model upon the two-node model.
