scholarly journals A review of the UK and British Channel Islands practical tidal stream energy resource

Author(s):  
Daniel Coles ◽  
Athanasios Angeloudis ◽  
Deborah Greaves ◽  
Gordon Hastie ◽  
Matthew Lewis ◽  
...  

This review provides a critical, multi-faceted assessment of the practical contribution tidal stream energy can make to the UK and British Channel Islands future energy mix. Evidence is presented that broadly supports the latest national-scale practical resource estimate, of 34 TWh/year, equivalent to 11% of the UK’s current annual electricity demand. The size of the practical resource depends in part on the economic competitiveness of projects. In the UK, 124 MW of prospective tidal stream capacity is currently eligible to bid for subsidy support (MeyGen 1C, 80 MW; PTEC, 30 MW; and Morlais, 14 MW). It is estimated that the installation of this 124 MW would serve to drive down the levelized cost of energy (LCoE), through learning, from its current level of around 240   £ / MWh to below 150   £ / MWh , based on a mid-range technology learning rate of 17%. Doing so would make tidal stream cost competitive with technologies such as combined cycle gas turbines, biomass and anaerobic digestion. Installing this 124 MW by 2031 would put tidal stream on a trajectory to install the estimated 11.5 GW needed to generate 34 TWh/year by 2050. The cyclic, predictable nature of tidal stream power shows potential to provide additional, whole-system cost benefits. These include reductions in balancing expenditure that are not considered in conventional LCoE estimates. The practical resource is also dependent on environmental constraints. To date, no collisions between animals and turbines have been detected, and only small changes in habitat have been measured. The impacts of large arrays on stratification and predator–prey interaction are projected to be an order of magnitude less than those from climate change, highlighting opportunities for risk retirement. Ongoing field measurements will be important as arrays scale up, given the uncertainty in some environmental and ecological impact models. Based on the findings presented in this review, we recommend that an updated national-scale practical resource study is undertaken that implements high-fidelity, site-specific modelling, with improved model validation from the wide range of field measurements that are now available from the major sites. Quantifying the sensitivity of the practical resource to constraints will be important to establish opportunities for constraint retirement. Quantification of whole-system benefits is necessary to fully understand the value of tidal stream in the energy system.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Silvia Ravelli

Abstract This study takes inspiration from a previous work focused on the simulations of the Willem-Alexander Centrale (WAC) power plant located in Buggenum (the Netherlands), based on integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) technology, under both design and off-design conditions. These latter included co-gasification of coal and biomass, in proportions of 30:70, in three different fuel mixtures. Any drop in the energy content of the coal/biomass blend, with respect to 100% coal, translated into a reduction in gas turbine (GT) firing temperature and load, according to the guidelines of WAC testing. Since the model was found to be accurate in comparison with operational data, here attention is drawn to the GT behavior. Hence part load strategies, such as fuel-only turbine inlet temperature (TIT) control and inlet guide vane (IGV) control, were investigated with the aim of maximizing the net electric efficiency (ηel) of the whole plant. This was done for different GT models from leading manufactures on a comparable size, in the range between 190–200 MW. The influence of fuel quality on overall ηel was discussed for three binary blends, over a wide range of lower heating value (LHV), while ensuring a concentration of H2 in the syngas below the limit of 30 vol%. IGV control was found to deliver the highest IGCC ηel combined with the lowest CO2 emission intensity, when compared not only to TIT control but also to turbine exhaust temperature control, which matches the spec for the selected GT engine. Thermoflex® was used to compute mass and energy balances in a steady environment thus neglecting dynamic aspects.


Author(s):  
M. Huth ◽  
A. Heilos ◽  
G. Gaio ◽  
J. Karg

The Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle concept is an emerging technology that enables an efficient and clean use of coal as well as residuals in power generation. After several years of development and demonstration operation, now the technology has reached the status for commercial operation. SIEMENS is engaged in 3 IGCC plants in Europe which are currently in operation. Each of these plants has specific characteristics leading to a wide range of experiences in development and operation of IGCC gas turbines fired with low to medium LHV syngases. The worlds first IGCC plant of commercial size at Buggenum/Netherlands (Demkolec) has already demonstrated that IGCC is a very efficient power generation technology for a great variety of coals and with a great potential for future commercial market penetration. The end of the demonstration period of the Buggenum IGCC plant and the start of its commercial operation has been dated on January 1, 1998. After optimisations during the demonstration period the gas turbine is running with good performance and high availability and has exceeded 18000 hours of operation on coal gas. The air-side fully integrated Buggenum plant, equipped with a Siemens V94.2 gas turbine, has been the first field test for the Siemens syngas combustion concept, which enables operation with very low NOx emission levels between 120–600 g/MWh NOx corresponding to 6–30 ppm(v) (15%O2) and less than 5 ppm(v) CO at baseload. During early commissioning the syngas nozzle has been recognised as the most important part with strong impact on combustion behaviour. Consequently the burner design has been adjusted to enable quick and easy changes of the important syngas nozzle. This design feature enables fast and efficient optimisations of the combustion performance and the possibility for easy adjustments to different syngases with a large variation in composition and LHV. During several test runs the gas turbine proved the required degree of flexibility and the capability to handle transient operation conditions during emergency cases. The fully air-side integrated IGCC plant at Puertollano/Spain (Elcogas), using the advanced Siemens V94.3 gas turbine (enhanced efficiency), is now running successfully on coal gas. The coal gas composition at this plant is similar to the Buggenum example. The emission performance is comparable to Buggenum with its very low emission levels. Currently the gas turbine is running for the requirements of final optimization runs of the gasifier unit. The third IGCC plant (ISAB) equipped with Siemens gas turbine technology is located at Priolo near Siracusa at Sicilly/Italy. Two Siemens V94.2K (modified compressor) gas turbines are part of this “air side non-integrated” IGCC plant. The feedstock of the gasification process is a refinery residue (asphalt). The LHV is almost twice compared to the Buggenum or Puertollano case. For operation with this gas, the coal gas burner design was adjusted and extensively tested. IGCC operation without air extraction has been made possible by modifying the compressor, giving enhanced surge margins. Commissioning on syngas for the first of the two gas turbines started in mid of August 1999 and was almost finished at the end of August 1999. The second machine followed at the end of October 1999. Since this both machines are released for operation on syngas up to baseload.


Author(s):  
Dale Grace ◽  
Thomas Christiansen

Unexpected outages and maintenance costs reduce plant availability and can consume significant resources to restore the unit to service. Although companies may have the means to estimate cash flow requirements for scheduled maintenance and on-going operations, estimates for unplanned maintenance and its impact on revenue are more difficult to quantify, and a large fleet is needed for accurate assessment of its variability. This paper describes a study that surveyed 388 combined-cycle plants based on 164 D/E-class and 224 F-class gas turbines, for the time period of 1995 to 2009. Strategic Power Systems, Inc. (SPS®), manager of the Operational Reliability Analysis Program (ORAP®), identified the causes and durations of forced outages and unscheduled maintenance and established overall reliability and availability profiles for each class of plant in 3 five-year time periods. This study of over 3,000 unit-years of data from 50 Hz and 60 Hz combined-cycle plants provides insight into the types of events having the largest impact on unplanned outage time and cost, as well as the risks of lost revenue and unplanned maintenance costs which affect plant profitability. Outage events were assigned to one of three subsystems: the gas turbine equipment, heat recovery steam generator (HRSG) equipment, or steam turbine equipment, according to the Electric Power Research Institute’s Equipment Breakdown Structure (EBS). Costs to restore the unit to service for each main outage cause were estimated, as were net revenues lost due to unplanned outages. A statistical approach to estimated costs and lost revenues provides a risk-based means to quantify the impact of unplanned events on plant cash flow as a function of class of gas turbine, plant subsystem, and historical timeframe. This statistical estimate of the costs of unplanned outage events provides the risk-based assessment needed to define the range of probable costs of unplanned events. Results presented in this paper demonstrate that non-fuel operation and maintenance costs are increased by roughly 8% in a typical combined-cycle power plant due to unplanned maintenance events, but that a wide range of costs can occur in any single year.


1995 ◽  
Vol 117 (4) ◽  
pp. 673-677 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. S. Cook ◽  
J. C. Corman ◽  
D. M. Todd

The integration of gas turbines and combined cycle systems with advances in coal gasification and gas stream cleanup systems will result in economically viable IGCC systems. Optimization of IGCC systems for both emission levels and cost of electricity is critical to achieving this goal. A technical issue is the ability to use a wide range of coal and petroleum-based fuel gases in conventional gas turbine combustor hardware. In order to characterize the acceptability of these syngases for gas turbines, combustion studies were conducted with simulated coal gases using full-scale advanced gas turbine (7F) combustor components. It was found that NOx emissions could be correlated as a simple function of stoichiometric flame temperature for a wide range of heating values while CO emissions were shown to depend primarily on the H2 content of the fuel below heating values of 130 Btu/scf (5125 kJ/NM3) and for H2/CO ratios less than unity. The test program further demonstrated the capability of advanced can-annular combustion systems to burn fuels from air-blown gasifiers with fuel lower heating values as low as 90 Btu/scf (3548 kJ/NM3) at 2300°F (1260°C) firing temperature. In support of ongoing economic studies, numerous IGCC system evaluations have been conducted incorporating a majority of the commercial or near-commercial coal gasification systems coupled with “F” series gas turbine combined cycles. Both oxygen and air-blown configurations have been studied, in some cases with high and low-temperature gas cleaning systems. It has been shown that system studies must start with the characteristics and limitations of the gas turbine if output and operating economics are to be optimized throughout the range of ambient operating temperature and load variation.


Author(s):  
Thomas A. A. Adcock ◽  
Scott Draper

There are various candidate sites for tidal stream energy extraction in the English Channel. In this paper we examine the tidal stream resource at Portland Bill and the south coast of the Isle of Wight. A depth-averaged numerical model is developed and compared to field measurements. The presence of rows of tidal turbines is simulated using a line-discontinuity to represent the head loss across the turbines. The head loss is given by linear momentum actuator disc theory. At each site the length of the turbine rows, the local blockage ratio, and the location of the turbines are varied. For Portland Bill the presence of an array with multiple rows of turbines is also considered. We find that it is likely that (based purely on the hydrodynamics) power could viably be extracted at each site, with the mean power produced by each site being in the order of 10s MW.


2016 ◽  
Vol 139 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shi Liu ◽  
Hong Yin ◽  
Yan Xiong ◽  
Xiaoqing Xiao

Heavy duty gas turbines are the core components in the integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) system. Different from the conventional fuel for gas turbine such as natural gas and light diesel, the combustible component acquired from the IGCC system is hydrogen-rich syngas fuel. It is important to modify the original gas turbine combustor or redesign a new combustor for syngas application since the fuel properties are featured with the wide range hydrogen and carbon monoxide mixture. First, one heavy duty gas turbine combustor which adopts natural gas and light diesel was selected as the original type. The redesign work mainly focused on the combustor head and nozzle arrangements. This paper investigated two feasible combustor arrangements for the syngas utilization including single nozzle and multiple nozzles. Numerical simulations are conducted to compare the flow field, temperature field, composition distributions, and overall performance of the two schemes. The obtained results show that the flow structure of the multiple nozzles scheme is better and the temperature distribution inside the combustor is more uniform, and the total pressure recovery is higher than the single nozzle scheme. Through the full scale test rig verification, the combustor redesign with multiple nozzles scheme is acceptable under middle and high pressure combustion test conditions. Besides, the numerical computations generally match with the experimental results.


2016 ◽  
Vol 192 ◽  
pp. 27-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Adderley ◽  
J. Carey ◽  
J. Gibbins ◽  
M. Lucquiaud ◽  
R. Smith

Post-combustion CO2 capture (PCC) can be achieved using a variety of technologies. Importantly it is applicable to a wide range of processes and may also be retrofitted in certain cases. This paper covers the use of PCC for low carbon power generation from new natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) plants that are expected to be built in the UK in the 2020s and 2030s and that will run into the 2050s. Costs appear potentially comparable with other low carbon and controllable generation sources such as nuclear or renewables plus storage, especially with the lower gas prices that can be expected in a carbon-constrained world. Non-fuel cost reduction is still, however, desirable and, since CO2 capture is a new application, significant potential is likely to exist. For the NGCC+PCC examples shown in this paper, moving from ‘first of a kind’ (FOAK) to ‘nth of a kind’ (NOAK) gives significant improvements through both reduced financing costs and capital cost reductions. To achieve this the main emphasis needs to be on ‘commercial readiness’, rather than on system-level ‘technical readiness’, and on improvements through innovation activities, supported by underpinning research, that develop novel sub-processes; this will also maintain NOAK status for cost-effective financing. Feasible reductions in the energy penalty for PCC capture have much less impact, reflecting the inherently high levels of efficiency for modern NGCC+PCC plants.


2006 ◽  
Vol 128 (2) ◽  
pp. 326-335 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Bhargava ◽  
M. Bianchi ◽  
F. Melino ◽  
A. Peretto

In recent years, deregulation in the power generation market worldwide combined with significant variation in fuel prices and a need for flexibility in terms of power augmentation specially during periods of high electricity demand (summer months or noon to 6:00 p.m.) has forced electric utilities, cogenerators and independent power producers to explore new power generation enhancement technologies. In the last five to ten years, inlet fogging approach has shown more promising results to recover lost power output due to increased ambient temperature compared to the other available power enhancement techniques. This paper presents the first systematic study on the effects of both inlet evaporative and overspray fogging on a wide range of combined cycle power plants utilizing gas turbines available from the major gas turbine manufacturers worldwide. A brief discussion on the thermodynamic considerations of inlet and overspray fogging including the effect of droplet dimension is also presented. Based on the analyzed systems, the results show that high pressure inlet fogging influences performance of a combined cycle power plant using an aero-derivative gas turbine differently than with an advanced technology or a traditional gas turbine. Possible reasons for the observed differences are discussed.


2018 ◽  
Vol 140 (03) ◽  
pp. S54-S55
Author(s):  
Uwe Schütz

This article describes features and advantages of new mobile gas turbine with a wide range of applications. The market for mobile gas turbines is continuously growing. Mobile units are also an ideal choice when it comes to making large power capacities available on a short-term basis, for example, for major events, prolonged downtimes at other power stations, or power-intensive applications such as mining or shale gas extraction. If the electricity requirements exceed the level that can normally be demanded of a mobile application, an SGT-A45 installation can be modified to form a combined-cycle power plant to further improve its efficiency. In remote locations, this can be achieved using an Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC), to eliminate the need for water and water treatment systems, and to optimize energy recovery from the SGT-A45 off-gas stream at a relatively low temperature. The use of a direct heat exchanger, in which the ORC working fluid is evaporated by the off-gas stream from the gas turbine, can boost the system’s output capacity by more than 20 percent.


Author(s):  
T S Kim ◽  
S T Ro

This paper demonstrates a favourable influence of turbine coolant modulation on the part load performance of gas turbines. A general simulation programme is developed, which is capable of accurately estimating the design and part load performance of modern heavy-duty gas turbines characterized by intensive turbine blade cooling Investigations are made for a typical gas turbine and two distinct load control schemes are considered: the fuel-only control and the variable compressor geometry control. Maintaining blade temperatures as high as possible whose purpose is to minimize coolant consumption is simulated. It is found that the coolant modulation makes the part load characteristics deviate from usual behaviours and creates a considerable enhancement of part load thermal efficiency. For the fuel-only control with coolant modulation, it is predicted that efficiency can be higher than design efficiency over a wide range of part load operation.


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