141. CTOTF Conference: ‘Best One-Stop Shop to Hit It All’

The Combustion Turbine Operations Technical Forum (CTOTF) is the longest continuously active gas turbine industry organization driven by users, for users. CTOTF offers week-long conferences twice annually in the spring and fall. The conferences provide a balance of technical information, user-to-user interaction, and professional development and mentoring for the group’s nationwide user base. CTOTF’s 2023 Fall Conference will be held September 24–28 at the Mystic Lake Casino Hotel in Prior Lake, Minnesota. As a guest on The POWER Podcast, Dave Tummonds, senior director of Project Engineering with Louisville Gas and Electric (LG&E) and chairman of the board for the CTOTF, talked about the group and some of the things he’s looking forward to during the upcoming event. “The biggest thing for me is, when you look at our agenda and what we strive to accomplish over the course of a week-long conference, we hit a lot of things that admittedly some other conferences hit, but we tend to be the best one-stop shop to hit it all,” Tummonds said. Sessions encourage interaction from all attendees and offer an intimate setting where newcomers don’t get lost in the crowd. The agenda begins with opening presentations that often dive into industry trends, among other things. This fall, Aron Patrick, director of Research and Development (R&D) with PPL Corp., parent company of LG&E, will give a presentation focused on the energy transition. “On our kickoff day—Monday morning—we’re going to have an update from my company’s R&D director, who’s going to go over some of the things that are being done in the heart of coal country—in Kentucky and similar areas—in preparation for the decarbonization effort,” said Tummonds. “What makes this interesting, I believe, is his analysis, and his group’s analysis, which really points out that as we seriously look to decarbonize, we’ve got to do that with more backup from gas-fired megawatts as opposed to less. It’s just a necessity to make up for the times when those renewable megawatts are not available. “The other thing I would mention associated with his presentation is he’s going to touch on some efforts in the area of hydrogen blending that his group is specifically looking at, as well as carbon capture and sequestration, that again, when you look at the unique perspective of the heart of coal country, I think serves as an important note for us all.” On the podcast, Tummonds touched on many of the other sessions and activities that are planned this fall too. Among the highlights are presentations by original equipment manufacturers, topical discussions with third-party suppliers and other experts, technical education sessions, leadership development roundtables, environmental updates, and plenty of time for networking and fun.