John Kraft

Caldwell Energy has been providing combustion turbine inlet air cooling systems to power generators for over 5 years. Educating the market on the advantages of installing inlet cooling equipment for their generation assets, Caldwell has provided systems in the United States, Korea, Thailand and Australia, having installed systems on 120 combustion turbines, totaling over 1000 MW.

Caldwell Energy and Environmental, Inc. is a turnkey provider of combustion turbine inlet air cooling systems for power generators around the world. We set out to be a single point responsible design/contracting firm for power companies wishing to increase the output and efficiency of their combustion turbines. "We are a true/single point responsible' turnkey provider of thermal energy storage, direct chilling, fogging and wet compression cooling technologies. No other company can provide this product portfolio and fairly evaluate all types of inlet cooling power augmentation systems," John Kraft, president of Caldwell Energy said.

"As the ambient temperature rises, air becomes less dense. Combustion turbines, which are a constant volume machine, lose significant power output (over 25%) on hot days when they ingest much less air, producing much less power. Caldwell Energy provides inlet cooling systems to cool the air entering the combustion turbines, thus gaining back much of the 25% power loss due to ambient conditions."

As deregulation unfolded, it became apparent to all power generators that they must become much more efficient in producing electricity. The market was going to open up - they were to have competitors. No longer did they have a protected territory, and engineers began looking at ways of optimizing their assets. Caldwell Energy's inlet cooling systems had to be modified to meet base load needs, as well as peak demand needs. That developed into a broader focus on chilling and evaporative fogging technology systems.

We were adapting our product to serve the base-load generator. In fact, one of our first large projects was for a base load generator in the northeast United States - an on-line chilling system for a Frame 7EA combustion turbine.

In continuing to answer the needs of the power generation industry, Caldwell has recently opened a California office to meet the increasing west coast needs. In 2001, we will be offering wet compression technology to the power market, a technology which will revolutionize inlet cooling design.

In addition to turnkey services, we are offering complete operation and maintenance programs and will continue to offer financing packages for customers. We will continue to develop our international profile, as other countries deregulate and experience the need of generating additional power efficiently.

As most people know, the years from 1995 through 2000 were the most pivotal in U.S. power generation history.

Deregulation was sweeping the nation. Several generation categories existed - regulated utilities, deregulated utilities, qualified facilities, non-utility generators, wholesale generators and independent power producers, just to name a few. Our customers were ever changing and our products had to adapt to this rapidly changing energy market.

As our mission statement reads, Caldwell Energy will exceed the expectations of our customers and, by doing so, will be the market leader in the design, fabrication, construction and commissioning of combustion turbine inlet air cooling systems. Our efforts will continue to focus on continual improvements in engineering, product quality, productivity and service.