IGCC and Related Energy Terms Glossary[1],[2]
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Absorption: The process of taking up and internalizing of a substance by another substance through chemical or molecular action (e.g. a gas absorbed by a liquid).
Acid Rain (acid precipitation or acid deposition): Precipitation containing harmful amounts of nitric and sulfuric acids formed primarily by nitrogen oxides and sulfur oxides released into the atmosphere when fossil fuels are burned. Acid rain can take the form of wet precipitation (rain, snow, or fog) or dry precipitation (absorbed gaseous and particulate matter, aerosol particles or dust).
Adsorption: The process of adhesion of the molecules of a gas, liquid or dissolved substance (in a condensed form) to a surface.
Alternative Fuels: Non-fossil and non-nuclear fuels such as windpower, solar energy, and biofuels.
Amortization Period: The period of time over which a capital cost is recovered through a depreciation process.
Aquifer: A subsurface waterbearing rock structure or stratum.
Ash: Post-combustion impurities consisting of silica, iron, alumina, and other noncombustible matter that are contained in coal.
Barrel: A volumetric unit of measure for crude oil and petroleum products equivalent to 42 U.S. gallons.
Baseload: The minimum amount of electric power delivered or required over a given period of time at a steady rate on an around-the-clock basis.
Biomass Gas: A medium Btu gas containing methane and carbon dioxide, resulting from the action of microorganisms on organic materials such as a landfill.
Biomass: Organic non-fossil material of biological origin constituting a renewable energy source.
Boiler: A device for generating steam for power, processing, or heating purposes or for producing hot water for heating purposes or hot water supply. Heat from an external combustion source is transmitted to a working fluid contained within the tubes in the boiler shell. This fluid is delivered to an end-use at a desired pressure, temperature, and quality.
Btu (British Thermal Unit): A standard unit of measure equal to the quantity of heat required to raise the temperature of 1 pound of water by 1 degree Fahrenheit at or near 39.2 degrees Fahrenheit.
Carbon Dioxide Sequestration and Utilization: Long term storage of carbon dioxide as a component of some other material, such as soil or biomass, in the deep ocean, or geological formations such as terrestrial aquifers or depleted oil or gas wells.
Carbon dioxide: A gas with one carbon and two oxygen atoms (CO2) that is a combustion byproduct and the principal greenhouse gas.
Carbon Emissions (Anthropogenic): Releases of carbon to the atmosphere as part of compounds that arise from man-made processes such as energy use or agriculture.
Catalysis (Biocatalysis): The chemical or biological process whereby the presence of an external compound, a catalyst, serves as an agent to cause a chemical reaction to occur or to improve reaction performance without altering the external compound.
Climate Change: Regional or global-scale changes in historical climate patterns arising from natural and/or manmade causes that produce an increasing mean global surface temperature. The man-made contributions are often called the greenhouse effect.
Climate Change Mitigation: Actions which are adopted to reduce the effects of antrhropogenic activities on the global climate.
Coal: A generic term applied to carbonaceous rocks that were formed by the partial or complete decomposition ofvegetation. These stratified carbonaceous rocks are either solid or brittle and are highly combustible.
Anthracite: A hard, black lustrous coal, often referred to as hard coal, containing a high percentage of fixed carbon and a low percentage of volatile matter.
Bituminous Coal: The most common coal. It is dense and black (often with well-defined bands of bright and dull material). Its moisture content usually is less than 20 percent. It is used for generating electricity, making coke, and space heating.
Lignite: A brownish-black coal of low quality (i.e., low heat content per unit) with high inherent moisture and volatile matter (used almost exclusively for electric power generation). It is also referred to as brown coal.
Subbituminous Coal: Subbituminous coal, or black lignite, is dull black and generally contains 20 to 30 percent moisture. The heat content of subbituminous coal ranges from 16 to 24 million Btu per ton as received and averages about 18 million Btu per ton. Subbituminous coal, mined in the western coalfields, is used for generating electricity and space heating.
Cogeneration: The simultaneous production of electrical energy and another form of useful thermal energy (such as heat or steam) from the same fuel source, often used for industrial, commercial, heating, or cooling purposes.
Coke (Petroleum): see Petroleum
Combined Cycle: A multi-stage electric generating technology in which electricity is produced first from one or more conventional gas (combustion) turbines and then from steam turbines, although typically about two-thirds of the total power is generated in the gas turbine portion of the plant. A variety of fuels can supply the gas turbine stages, after which waste heat exiting the gas turbines is routed to a conventional boiler or a heat recovery steam generator for use by a steam turbine to produce additional electricity.
Combustion: A rapid oxidation reaction between a fuel and oxygen that produces heat (the chemical energy content of a fuel is converted to heat energy).
Commercial Sector: The commercial sector is generally defined as non-manufacturing business establishments, including hotels, motels, restaurants, wholesale businesses, retail stores, and health, social, and educational institutions.
Conservation (Energy): The reduction of energy consumed to provide an energy service (heat, light, mechanical drive or other forms of work) by efforts to improve the efficiency of the energy conversion process.
Conduction: Transfer of heat from one mass to another through a temperature difference between the masses.
Convection: Motion in a fluid or plastic material due to some portions being buoyant because of their higher temperature. Convection is a means of transferring heat through mass flow rather than through simple thermal conduction.
Conversion Losses: A portion of the energy content of a fuel that is lost or is not useable to provide energy services due to operation of the energy conversion process.
Crude oil: see Petroleum
Current (Electric): A flow of electrons in an electrical conductor (electricity strength or rate of movement is measured in amperes).
Decarbonization: Removal of carbon from fossil fuel energy systems. Decarbonization can occur prior to combustion by chemical separation processes, or after combustion via separation of flue gases.
Decentralized Energy Technologies: Energy production, transfer, conversion or end-use devices that are widely dispersed and operate independent of a large-scale networked energy system such as a regional electic power grid.
Demand-Side Management: The planning, implementation, and monitoring of utility activities designed to encourage consumers to modify patterns of electricity usage including the timing and level of electricity demand. It refers only to energy and load-shape modifying activities that are undertaken in response to utility-administered programs.
Distribution System: The portion of an energy (e.g. electricity) system that is dedicated to delivering useful, low voltage energy to end users.
District Heating: The system by which multiple locations are supplied with energy services from a centralized energy conversion source and a system of distribution channels used by an energy carrier for service delivery.
Dry Hole Risk: The risk during the construction period of an energy project.
Electric Plant (Physical): A facility containing prime movers, electric generators, and auxiliary equipment for converting mechanical, chemical, and/or fission energy into electric energy.
Electric Utility Restructuring: A term to describe the introduction of competition into at least the generation phase of electricity production, with a corresponding decrease in regulatory control. Restructuring may also modify or eliminate other traditional aspects of investor-owned utilities, including their exclusive franchise to serve a given geographical area, assured rates of return, and vertical integration of the production process.
Electric Utility: A corporation, person, agency, authority, or other legal entity or instrumentality that owns and/or operates facilities for the generation, transmission, distribution, or sale of electric energy primarily for use by the public. Electric utilities do not include facilities that qualify as cogenerators or small power producers.
Electricity Generation: The process of producing electric energy by transforming other forms of energy; also, the amount of electric energy produced, expressed in watt-hours (Wh).
Emission: The release or discharge of a substance into the environment; generally refers to the release of waste products (Solids, liquids, or gases) into the air, water, or soil.
Emissions Trading: A system of managing harmful emissions whereby a regulatory agency specifies an overall level of pollution that will be tolerated (a cap) and then uses allowances to develop a market to allocate the pollution among sources of pollution under the cap. Total emissions cannot exceed the cap. Emissions permits or allowances become the currency of the market, as pollution sources are free to buy, sell, or otherwise trade permits based on their own marginal costs of control and the price of the permits.
Energy Efficiency: The amount of input energy required per unit of output energy service provided by an energy consuming device; also, efforts or activities that aim at reducing the energy used by specific end-use devices and systems, typically without affecting the services provided. Examples include high-efficiency appliances, efficient lighting programs, high-efficiency heating, ventilating and air conditioning (HVAC) systems or control modifications, efficient building design, advanced electric motor drives, and heat recovery systems.
Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council (EFSEC): The Washington State agency that licenses large energy projects (over 350 MW). Actvities include siting large natural gas and old pipelines, thermal electric power plants that are 350 megawatts or greater and their dedicated transmission lines, new oil refineries or large expansions of existing facilities, and underground natural gas storage fields. EFSEC has been delegated authority by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to issue permits under the Federal Water Pollution Control Act and the Federal Clean Air Act for facilities under its jurisdiction
Energy Industries: Industries that supply primary energy or energy services in bulk form, namely, the coal, oil, natural gas, and electric power industries.
Energy Intensity: The amount of output energy service provided by an energy conversion system per unit input energy the inverse of energy efficiency.
Energy Management: The use of computer-based controllers to determine the operation characteristics of energy using equipment and processes so that actual use results in the maximum energy efficiency that is practical.
Energy Source: The primary source that provides the raw material that is converted to useable energy (work) through chemical, mechanical, or other means. Energy sources include coal, petroleum and petroleum products, gas, water, uranium, wind, sunlight, geothermal, and other sources.
Energy System: Physically connected energy production (e.g. generation), transmission, and distribution facilities operated as an integrated unit.
Energy: The capacity for doing work as measured by the capability of doing work (potential energy) or the conversion of this capability to motion (kinetic energy). Energy has several forms (e.g. thermal, mechanical, nuclear and electric), some of which are easily convertible and can be changed to another form useful for work. Heat energy is usually measured in British thermal units (Btus) while electrical energy is usually measured in kilowatt-hours (kWh).
Externalities: Benefits or costs generated as the result of an economic activity, that do not accrue directly to the parties involved in the activity. For example, environmental externalities are benefits or costs that manifest themselves through changes in the physical or biological environment regardless of the relationship of the parties to the environmental regime impacted.
Flue Gas Streams: A tube or stack to contain the passage of hot gases, air and smoke as in the exhaust products from combustion.
Flue Gas: The exhaust gases from a combustion facility in the stack that discharges them to the atmosphere. These gases often contain sulfur, which can be removed by a desulfurization scrubber, and particulates, which can be removed using specialized collectors like electrostatic precipitators, mechanical collectors (cyclones), fabric filters (baghouses), and wet scrubbers.
Fluidized Bed Gasifier: A system which extracts the volatile components of a solid feedstock (e.g. coal or biomes) by controlled, rapid heating without agglomerating the feedstock using a temperature-staged, grated reactor bed through which gases are passed to percolate up through the solid feedstock.
Fossil Fuel: Naturally occurring combustible hydrocarbon compounds, such as petroleum, coal, and natural gas.
Fuel: Any substance that can be burned to produce heat; also, materials that can be fissioned in a chain reaction to produce heat.
Fuel Cell: Any of several galvanic energy conversion devices that convert the chemical energy of a fuel directly into electrical energy in the presence of an oxidant. Examples of fuel cells include solid oxide (SOFC), solid polymer (SPFC) and molten carbonate (MCFC) technologies.
Fuel Cycle: The linked sequential stages through which a fuel passes from primary energy extraction through final conversion into a useful energy service (work).
Gas Turbine: Rotating machinery where liquid or gaseous fuel is burned to produce electric power and heat. Hot combustion gases are passed to the turbine and where they expand to drive the generator and are then used to run the compressor. Gas turbines typically consist of an axial-flow air compressor; one or more combustion chambers and a turbine drive section connected to a generator.
Gas: A fuel burned under boilers and by internal combustion engines. These include natural, manufactured and waste gas.
Gasification (Combined Cycle): A multi-stage process for producing electricity from a fuel using both the expansion of gas in gas turbogenerators and expansion of steam in steam turbogenerators. In this process, the fuel is first partially oxidized with air at elevated pressure, converting the fuel to a raw fuel gas. In subsequent stages, the fuel gas is cleaned, and then first burned in a combustor and expanded in a gas turbine. Finally, the turbine exhaust gases are used to raise steam in a steam boiler, which drives a steam generator.
Generating Unit: Any combination of physically connected generator(s), reactor(s), boiler(s), combustion turbine(s), or other prime mover(s) operated together to produce electric power.
Generator: A machine that converts mechanical energy into electrical energy.
Geothermal Energy: Heat recovered energy from deep within the earth for power generation, process heating or district heating using a subsurface closed loop working fluid system and surface power generation plant.
Greenhouse Effect: The increasing mean global surface temperature of the Earth caused by high concentrations of certain gases in the atmosphere (including carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, ozone, and chlorofluorocarbons). The greenhouse effect allows solar radiation to penetrate, but absorbs the infrared radiationreturning to space.
Heat Exchangers: A device for transfer of heat from an area of higher temperature to one of lower temperature.
Heat Recovery: The process of capturing heat that normally would be wasted and delivering it to a device or process where it can be used.
Heating Value: The average number of British thermal units per unit of weight or volume of a fuel (e.g. Btus per cubic foot of natural gas) as determined from tests of fuel samples.
Hydrocarbon Fuels: Any substance containing only hydrogen and carbon that is a fuel. Combustible material….combustion—a process of oxidation of a substance that produces heat and sometimes light. Burn…to consume with fire. To expel the volatile parts and reduce to non-combustible residue.
Hydroelectric Plant: An electricity-generating facility in which the turbine generators are driven by falling water.
Hydrogen: An in flammable, colorless, odorless, gaseous chemical element the lightest of all known substances.
Hydropower: The production of electricity by the action of moving water falling on a turbine generator.
Independent Power Producer (IPP): A wholesale electricity producer that is unaffiliated with franchised utilities in the area in which the IPP is selling power and that lacks significant marketing power. IPPs do not possess transmission facilities that are essential to their customers and do not sell power in any retail service territory where they have a franchise.
Industrial sector: The industrial sector is generally defined as manufacturing, construction, mining, agriculture, fishing and forestry establishments; they are classified as part of US Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) codes 01-39.7
Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC): IGCC is a coal-fired, combined cycle electric power generation technology with post-combustion emission controls. The four major processes in an IGCC facility are: 1) converting coal into a fuel gas, 2) cleaning the fuel gas, 3) using the clean fuel gas to fire a gas turbine generator and using the hot turbine exhaust to make steam that drives a steam turbine generator, and 4) treating waste streams generated. Gasification of coal allows pollutant carriers to be removed from the fuel before its combustion in the power plant. Emissions of sulfur and nitrogen oxides and particulates from IGCC facilities are projected to be significantly lower than for existing technologies.
Insolation (solar): The amount of radiation from the sun received at the surface of the earth in a particular geographic location or region.
Life Cycle Assessment: Analysis of the impacts (e.g. energy, environmental or economic impacts) a system over its complete lifetime from creation to destruction, sometimes including the lifetimes of key constituents and components.
Liquefaction (coal, hydrogen): The conversion of coal to liquid hydrocarbons by reacting coal slurry with hydrogen in the presence of a catalyst (in a turbulent flow, packed bed reactor).
Load: The amount of energy (e.g. electric) needed to meet a requirement for an energy service by energy-consuming equipment at any specific point in a system.
Load Management: Use of power management techniques such as off-peak generation capacity to better match power supply with load demand so that generating resources are used to maximum efficiency.
Manufactured Gas: A synthetic gas obtained by processes such as destructive distillation of coal, thermal decomposition of oil or the reaction of steam passing through a bed of heated coal or coke. Examples are coal gases, coke oven gases, producer gas, blast furnace gas, blue (water) gas, carbureted water gas.
Marginal Cost: The change in cost associated with a unit change in quantity supplied or produced.
Membrane: A thin film or structure that selectively retards mixing or permits separation of one or more fluids.
MAI: Stands for "Member Appraisal Institute", is a registered trademark of the Appraisal Institute( a trade institute). There is such thing as an "MAI appraisal." An "MAI appraisal" mean that the report should be prepared by an MAI designated member of the Appraisal Institute. Appraisal Institute members are held to higher standards than licensed-only appraisers, but so too are designated members of other appraisal trade organizations. Each appraiser needs to be judged by his/her merits rather than the association to which they belong.
Methane Hydrate: A colorless, odorless, gaseous hydrocarbon that is inflammable and is formed naturally or artificially. It can be used as a fuel or raw material for producing energy or as a feedstock for the production of other chemicals.
Methane: A hydrocarbon compounds that is the major component of natural gas; the most common gas formed in coalmines.
Natural Gas: A naturally occurring mixture of hydrocarbon and non-hydrocarbon gases found in porous geological formations beneath the earth's surface, often in association with petroleum. The principal constituent is methane.
Nitrogen Oxide: A reactive gas formed when fuel is burned at high temperatures
Nonutility Power Producer (NPP): A corporation, person, agency, authority, or other legal entity or instrumentality that owns electric generating capacity and is not an electric utility. NPPs include qualifying cogenerators, qualifying small power producers, and other non-utility generators such as independent power producers.
Nuclear Reactor: An apparatus in which the nuclear fission chain can be initiated, maintained, and controlled so that energy is released at a specific rate. The reactor apparatus includes fissionable material (fuel) such as uranium or plutonium; fertile material; moderating material (unless it is a fast reactor); a heavy-walled pressure vessel; shielding to protect personnel; provision for heat removal; and control elements and instrumentation. Designs of nuclear reactors currently in use or under development include:
Ocean Thermal Energy System: A heat engine run by using the temperature difference (thermal gradient) between warm ocean surface water and the deeper cold layers of the ocean.
OSBL- Outside of the Battery Limit: Infrastructure processes that happens outside of the IGCC process itself
Oxidation: The chemical process in which the union of a substance with oxygen takes place.
Ozone: Three-atom oxygen compound (O3) found in two layers of the Earth’s atmosphere. One layer of beneficial ozone occurs at 7 to 18 miles above the surface and shields the Earth from ultraviolet light. Several holes in this protective layer have been documented by scientists. Ozone also concentrates at the surface as a result of reactions between byproducts of fossil fuel combustion and sunlight, having harmful health effects.
P
Particulates: Visible air pollutants consisting of particles appearing in smoke or mist emitted by the combustion of fossil fuels, primarily in the transportation, industrial, or electric utility sectors, or consisting of naturally occurring substances such as airborne dust particles.
Petroleum (Crude Oil): A naturally occurring, oily, flammable liquid composed principally of hydrocarbons. Crude oil is occasionally found in springs or pools but usually is drilled from wells beneath the earth's surface. Petroleum products are obtained from the processing of crude oil, natural gas and other hydrocarbon compounds. Petroleum products include unfinished oils, liquefied petroleum gases, pentanes plus, aviation gasoline, motor gasoline, naphtha-type jet fuel, kerosene-type jet fuel, kerosene, distillate fuel oil, residual fuel oil, petrochemical feedstocks, special naphtha’s, lubricants, waxes, petroleum coke, asphalt, road oil, still gas, and miscellaneousproducts.
Photovoltaic Cell: An electronic device consisting of layers of semiconductor materials that is capable of converting incident light directly into electricity (direct current).
Pollution: Any substances in water, soil, or air that degrade the natural quality of the environment, offend the senses of sight, taste, hearing, or smell, and/or cause a health hazard. The usefulness of a natural resource is usually impaired by the presence of pollutants and contaminants.
Power: The rate at which energy is transferred. Electrical energy is usually measured in watts. Also used for a measurement of capacity.
Powder River Basin (PRB/PRB Coal) The Powder River Basin spanning the Montana - Wyoming border is the single largest source of coal mined in the United States and contains one of the largest deposits of coal in the world. The low sulfur and ash content of the coal in the region makes it very desirable for power operations. The region covers southeast Montana and northeast Wyoming and is about 120 miles east to west and 200 miles north to south. This area of the U.S. is very sparsely populated and is rolling grasslands with an arid climate. Major cities in the area are Gillette and Sheridan, Wyoming and Miles City, Montana.
Pressurized Fluidized Bed Combustion: Burning of coal in a reactor comprised of a bed through which gas is fed to keep the fuel in a turbulent state which improves combustion, heat transfer and recovery of waste products.
Recovery Technologies: Technologies that are used in the removal of oil and gas from underground deposits. Recovery technologies are classified as primary (e.g.) secondary (e.g.) or tertiary (e.g.).
Refinery: An installation that manufactures finished petroleum products from crude oil, unfinished oils, natural gas liquids, other hydrocarbons, and alcohol.
Reformer: A system that performs gasification via a low-temp steam reforming chemical reaction. The reforming reaction is conducted between liquid hydrocarbons and steam over a catalyst bed to form methane, hydrogen and carbon oxides.
Renewable Energy Source: Replenishable flow resources such as wind, water, and biomass, that can be used as a fuel stock.
Research (Cross-Cutting): research and development (R&D) which involves more than one technical discipline or program area in order to be fully successful; also multi- or inter-disciplinary R&D.
Research and Development: The process of investigation and testing to increase technical know-how or basic understanding of a topic or area of study. Stages of the research and development process include:
Basic research: Scientific efforts that seek to gain more comprehensive knowledge or understanding of the subject under study, without specific applications or commercial objectives in mind.
Applied research: Inquiry aimed at gaining the knowledge or understanding to meet a specific, recognized need of a practical nature, especially needs to achieve specific commercial objectives with respect to products, processes, or services.
Development: The systematic use of the knowledge or understanding gained from research to create or improve useful materials, devices, systems, or methods through building and operating prototypes or test models.
Residential Sector: Private single and multi-family household establishments which consume energy primarily for space heating, water heating, air conditioning, lighting, refrigeration, cooking and clothes drying.
Scrubber: An emission control device that adds alkaline reagents to react with and neutralize acid gases.
Sensors and Controls: The use of automated measurement (sensor) and actuator (control) devices in a coordinated system to improve the operation of equipment or processes through better equipment settings.
Separation Process: The dissociation of selected constituents from a mixture via physical, chemical or other means.
Smog: Air pollution associated with the presence of photochemical oxidants such as oxides of nitrogen in the lower atmosphere released by the combustion of fossil fuels.
Solar Cell: Refers to a solar photovoltaic cell for converting sunlight directly into electricity.
Solar Energy: The radiant energy of the sun, which can be converted into other forms of energy, such as heat or electricity.
Solvent: A substance that dissolves, or makes a solution of, another substance
Steam-Electric Plant (Conventional): A plant in which the prime mover is a steam turbine. The steam used to drive the turbine is produced in a boiler where fossil fuels are burned.
Storage of Energy: The retention of energy available at one point in time in a form that permits the energy to be made available in a useful form at a later point in time. There are five basic methods of energy storage: electrochemical (e.g. batteries), thermal (e.g. diurnal or seasonal thermal systems), mechanical (e.g. pumped storage, flywheels and compressed air systems), magnetic (e.g. superconducting magnetic energy storage, SMES) and chemical (e.g. hydrogen storage and reversible chemical reactions).
Stranded Costs: Investments and prudently incurred expenses of electric utilities under regulated monopoly market conditions that become economically unviable as a result of utility deregulation. Provisions for the recovery of stranded costs is a major political issue in the process of electric utility restructuring in many countries inclusing the U.S.
Sulfur: One of the elements present in varying quantities in coal, which contributes to environmental degradation through acid precipitation when coal is burned.
Sulfur Oxide (SOx): A gas formed when fuel containing sulfur, such as coal and oil, is burned
Supercapacitor: A very high capacity energy storage system consisting of two parallels conductive plates separated by a dielectric material. The electric energy is stored as an electrostatic field between the plates by the electric charges accumulated on the plates.
Superconductors: A small number of metals that lose nearly all their electrical resistance in certain temperature ranges with the result that very high currents can be transmitted with very low losses. Use of these materials for electric power generation (superconducting turbine generators), storage (superconducting magnetic energy storage system, SMES) and transmission (superconducting transmission cables) promises important technical and cost advantages.
Synthetic Natural Gas, Syngas (SNG): A manufactured gas product resulting from the conversion or reforming of petroleum hydrocarbons or from coal gasification. It is chemically similar to natural gas and may be substituted for or interchanged with pipeline quality natural gas.
Therm: One hundred thousand British thermal units.
Transformer: An electrical device for changing the voltage of alternating current.
Transmission: The movement or transfer of electric energy at high voltage over an interconnected group of lines and associated equipment between points of supply and points at which it is either transformed for distribution and delivery to consumers or delivered to other electric systems. Transmission is considered to end when the energy is transformed to low voltage for distribution to the consumer.
Turbine: A machine for generating rotary mechanical shaft power from the energy of a stream of fluid (such as water, steam, or hot gas). Turbines convert the kinetic energy of fluids to mechanical energy through the principles of impulse and reaction.
Volatile Organic Compound (VOC): Any carbon compound that evaporates under standard test conditions. VOCs naturally occur in organic fuel, such as petroleum, coal and natural gas
Waste Heat: Heat energy produced in an energy conversion or transfer process that is lost during conversion or transfer and is not available for useful purposes.
Watt (Electric): The electrical unit of power. The rate of energy transfer equivalent to 1 ampere of electric current flowing under a pressure of 1 volt at unity power factor.
Watt (Thermal): A unit of power in the metric system, expressed in terms of energy per second, equal to the work done at a rate of 1 joule per second.
Watthour (Wh): An electrical energy unit of measure equal to 1 watt of power supplied to, or taken from, an electric circuit steadily for 1 hour.
Wave Energy: Energy that is available due to the motion of ocean waves.
Wellhead: The point at which the crude oil and/or natural gas exits the ground.
Wheeling: The use of the transmission facilities of one system to transmit power and energy by agreement of, and for, another system with a corresponding wheeling charge, e.g., the transmission of electricity for compensation over a system that is received from one system and delivered to another system).