The Gas Turbine Family GT13E and GT13E2 Provides Reliable Power for Asia

Author(s):  
Gregor Gnädig

Many Asian countries are experiencing economic growth which averages 5–10% per year. This environment has led to a privatization process in the power generation industry from typically state-run utilities to a system in which a federal agency oversees a market divided by private utilities and independent power producers (IPP) with the need for high efficiency, reliable power generation running on natural gas and diesel oil. In the 50 Hz market, modem, high efficient gas turbines of the type GT13E and GT13E2 have been chosen as prime movers in many combined cycle power plants in Asian countries. This paper includes a product description, and a general overview of GT13E and GT13E2 operating experience, well as an economic evaluation of a typical 500 MW combined cycle power plant.

Author(s):  
Christian Vandervort ◽  
David Leach ◽  
David Walker ◽  
Jerry Sasser

Abstract The power generation industry is facing unprecedented challenges. High fuel costs and increased penetration of renewable power have resulted in greater demand for high efficiency and operational flexibility. Imperatives to reduce carbon footprint place an even higher premium on efficiency. Power producers are seeking highly efficient, reliable, and operationally flexible solutions that provide long-term profitability in a volatile environment. New generation must also be cost-effective to ensure affordability for both domestic and industrial consumers. Gas turbine combined cycle power plants meet these requirements by providing reliable, dispatchable generation with a low cost of electricity, reduced environmental impact, and broad operational flexibility. Start times for large, industrial gas turbine combined cycles are less than 30 minutes from turning gear to full load, with ramp rates from 60 to 88 MW/minute. GE introduced the 7/9HA industrial gas turbine product portfolio in 2014 in response to these demands. These air-cooled, H-class gas turbines (7/9HA) are engineered to achieve greater than 63% net combined cycle efficiency while delivering operational flexibility through deep, emission-compliant turndown and high ramp rates. The largest of these gas turbines, the 9HA.02, is designed to exceed 64% combined cycle efficiency (net, ISO) in a 1×1, single-shaft (SS) configuration. As of December 2018, a total of 32 7/9HA power plants have achieved COD (Commercial Operation Date) while accumulating over 220,000 hours of operation. These plants operate across a variety of demand profiles including base load and load following (intermediate) service. Fleet leaders for both the 7HA and 9HA have exceeded 12,000 hours of operation, with multiple units over 8,000 hours. This paper will address four topics relating to the HA platform: 1) gas turbine product technology, 2) gas turbine validation, 3) integrated power plant commissioning and operating experience, and 4) lessons learned and fleet reliability.


Author(s):  
Andrea Ciani ◽  
John P. Wood ◽  
Anders Wickström ◽  
Geir J. Rørtveit ◽  
Rosetta Steeneveldt ◽  
...  

Abstract Today gas turbines and combined cycle power plants play an important role in power generation and in the light of increasing energy demand, their role is expected to grow alongside renewables. In addition, the volatility of renewables in generating and dispatching power entails a new focus on electricity security. This reinforces the importance of gas turbines in guaranteeing grid reliability by compensating for the intermittency of renewables. In order to achieve the Paris Agreement’s goals, power generation must be decarbonized. This is where hydrogen produced from renewables or with CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage) comes into play, allowing totally CO2-free combustion. Hydrogen features the unique capability to store energy for medium to long storage cycles and hence could be used to alleviate seasonal variations of renewable power generation. The importance of hydrogen for future power generation is expected to increase due to several factors: the push for CO2-free energy production is calling for various options, all resulting in the necessity of a broader fuel flexibility, in particular accommodating hydrogen as a future fuel feeding gas turbines and combined cycle power plants. Hydrogen from methane reforming is pursued, with particular interest within energy scenarios linked with carbon capture and storage, while the increased share of renewables requires the storage of energy for which hydrogen is the best candidate. Compared to natural gas the main challenge of hydrogen combustion is its increased reactivity resulting in a decrease of engine performance for conventional premix combustion systems. The sequential combustion technology used within Ansaldo Energia’s GT36 and GT26 gas turbines provides for extra freedom in optimizing the operation concept. This sequential combustion technology enables low emission combustion at high temperatures with particularly high fuel flexibility thanks to the complementarity between its first stage, stabilized by flame propagation and its second (sequential) stage, stabilized by auto-ignition. With this concept, gas turbines are envisaged to be able to provide reliable, dispatchable, CO2-free electric power. In this paper, an overview of hydrogen production (grey, blue, and green hydrogen), transport and storage are presented targeting a CO2-free energy system based on gas turbines. A detailed description of the test infrastructure, handling of highly reactive fuels is given with specific aspects of the large amounts of hydrogen used for the full engine pressure tests. Based on the results discussed at last year’s Turbo Expo (Bothien et al. GT2019-90798), further high pressure test results are reported, demonstrating how sequential combustion with novel operational concepts is able to achieve the lowest emissions, highest fuel and operational flexibility, for very high combustor exit temperatures (H-class) with unprecedented hydrogen contents.


Author(s):  
Rolf H. Kehlhofer

In the past 15 years the combined-cycle (gas/steam turbine) power plant has come into its own in the power generation market. Today, approximately 30 000 MW of power are already installed or being built as combined-cycle units. Combined-cycle plants are therefore a proven technology, showing not only impressive thermal efficiency ratings of up to 50 percent in theory, but also proving them in practice and everyday operation (1) (2). Combined-cycle installations can be used for many purposes. They range from power plants for power generation only, to cogeneration plants for district heating or combined cycles with maximum additional firing (3). The main obstacle to further expansion of the combined cycle principle is its lack of fuel flexibility. To this day, gas turbines are still limited to gaseous or liquid fuels. This paper shows a viable way to add a cheap solid fuel, coal, to the list. The plant system in question is a 2 × 150 MW combined-cycle plant of BBC Brown Boveri with integrated coal gasification plant of British Gas/Lurgi. The main point of interest is that all the individual components of the power plant described in this paper have proven their worth commercially. It is therefore not a pilot plant but a viable commercial proposition.


Author(s):  
Vikram Muralidharan ◽  
Matthieu Vierling

Power generation in south Asia has witnessed a steep fall due to the shortage of natural gas supplies for power plants and poor water storage in reservoirs for low hydro power generation. Due to the current economic scenario, there is worldwide pressure to secure and make more gas and oil available to support global power needs. With constrained fuel sources and increasing environmental focus, the quest for higher efficiency would be imminent. Natural gas combined cycle plants operate at a very high efficiency, increasing the demand for gas. At the same time, countries may continue to look for alternate fuels such as coal and liquid fuels, including crude and residual oil, to increase energy stability and security. In over the past few decades, the technology for refining crude oil has gone through a significant transformation. With the advanced refining process, there are additional lighter distillates produced from crude that could significantly change the quality of residual oil used for producing heavy fuel. Using poor quality residual fuel in a gas turbine to generate power could have many challenges with regards to availability and efficiency of a gas turbine. The fuel needs to be treated prior to combustion and needs a frequent turbine cleaning to recover the lost performance due to fouling. This paper will discuss GE’s recently developed gas turbine features, including automatic water wash, smart cooldown and model based control (MBC) firing temperature control. These features could significantly increase availability and improve the average performance of heavy fuel oil (HFO). The duration of the gas turbine offline water wash sequence and the rate of output degradation due to fouling can be considerably reduced.


Author(s):  
Dilip K. Mukherjee

In several industrial processes, various hydrocarbons, such as low BTU blast furnace gas, syngas, Naphtha, heavy oil and condensate, are available as by-products or residues. Burning such unconventional fuels for combined cycle power generation can be attractive in certain countries due to their low prices or availability compared to natural gas or distillate. In this paper, design and operating experience of combined cycle power plants burning such unconventional fuels, e.g. Bao Shan in China burning LBTU gas, GVK in India burning Naphtha and Api in Italy burning medium Btu gas from heavy oil (refinery bottom) gasification etc. are discussed. The high degree of manufacturers’ ability to develop such projects and design the required equipment — burners/combustors, CC power train and control systems — is illustrated. In addition, the development of Naphtha and condensate burner for GT13E2 is described in short.


Author(s):  
Helmut E. Vierrath ◽  
Peter K. Herbert ◽  
Claus F. Greil ◽  
Brian H. Thompson

It is widely accepted that coal gasification combined-cycle plants represent an environmentally superior alternative to conventional coal fired power plants with flue gas desulfurization. Purpose of this paper is to show that technology is available for all steps required to convert coal to electricity, including treatment of waste streams. Based on examples for power plants in the 200–800 MW range using current and as well as advanced gas turbines, it is shown that under both European and US-conditions cost of electricity from this (new) route of coal based power generation is certainly no higher — and probably even lower — than from conventional PC (pulverized coal) power plants equipped with equivalent environmental control technology. Thus, this technology is likely to be a prime contributor when it comes to enhance environmental acceptability of power plants in general, and to help solve the acid rain problem in particular. In addition the versatility of the proposed technology for repowering, decentralized application and district heat system is explained.


Author(s):  
S. Nogami ◽  
N. Ando ◽  
Y. Noguchi ◽  
K. Takahashi ◽  
T. Iwamiya ◽  
...  

Kyushu Electric Power Co., Inc., in constructing the recently completed first phase of the No. 1 Group of Shin-Oita Power Plant, Oita Prefecture (Kyushu Island), achieved further improvements over previous combined cycle plants, especially in the area of plant overall operation. It is composed of six combined cycle power units of the single-shaft, non-reheat type, based on Hitachi-GE MS7001E gas turbines, with a total output of 690 MW. Trial operations of the first unit began in May, 1990. Commercial operations of the first unit began in November 1990, and the last unit in June, 1991. The NO.1 Group incorporates two major advances over previous combined cycle plants. The first advance is a two-stage multiple nozzle dry-type low-NOx combustor. This combustor is a new development for keeping the level of NOx emissions below 62.5 ppm (16% O2 at gas turbine exhaust). The second advance is a new functionally and hierarchically distributed digital control system. By the control system, the plant was designed to bring the following notable features: 1 The individual units can be started and stopped automatically from the load dispatching directive center at the head office. 2 The plant can be operated for high efficiency with short starting and stopping time and large load variations. 3 Plant operating characteristics for emergency operations can be improved remarkably, for instance, load run back operations and fast cut back operation, etc. The results of trial operations have shown that the output per unit is about 0.5 to 4.2% higher, and the unit efficiency about 1.9 to 3.7% higher, than the planned values (all percentages relative), and tangible improvements and starting characteristics and load fluctuation are also satisfactory with the specified target values in the overall operation of the plant over that of previous combined cycle power plants. This plant has satisfactorily been operated since the start of commercial operation.


Author(s):  
J. Tobias ◽  
D. Depperschmidt ◽  
C. Welch ◽  
R. Miller ◽  
M. Uddi ◽  
...  

Pressure gain combustion (PGC) has been conceived to convert fuel’s chemical energy into thermal energy and mechanical energy, thereby reducing the entropy production in the process. Recent research has shown that the rotating detonation combustion or combustor (RDC) can provide excellent specific thrust, specific impulse, and pressure gain within a small volume through rapid energy release by continuous detonation in the circumferential direction. The RDC as a PGC system for power generating gas turbines in combined cycle power plants could provide significant efficiency gains. However, few past studies have employed fuels that are relevant to power generation turbines, since RDC research has focused mainly on propulsion applications. In this study, we present experimental results from RDC operated on methane and oxygen-enriched air to represent reactants used in land-based power generation. The RDC is operated at a high pressure by placing a back-pressure plate downstream of the annular combustor. Past studies have focused mainly on probe measurements inside the combustor, and thus, little information is known about the nature of the products exiting the RDC. In particular, it is unknown if chemical reactions persist outside the RDC annulus, especially if methane is used as the fuel. In this study, we apply two time-resolved optical techniques to simultaneously image the RDC products at framing rate of 30 kHz: (1) direct visual imaging to identify the overall size and extent of the plume, and (2) OH* chemiluminescence imaging to detect the reaction zones if any. Results show dynamic features of the combustion products that are consistent with the probe measurements inside the RDE. Moreover, presence of OH* in the products suggests that the oblique shock wave and reactions persist downstream of the detonation zone in the RDC.


2014 ◽  
Vol 136 (07) ◽  
pp. 38-43
Author(s):  
Lee S. Langston

This article focuses on the use of gas turbines for electrical power, mechanical drive, and marine applications. Marine gas turbines are used to generate electrical power for propulsion and shipboard use. Combined-cycle electric power plants, made possible by the gas turbine, continue to grow in size and unmatched thermal efficiency. These plants combine the use of the gas turbine Brayton cycle with that of the steam turbine Rankine cycle. As future combined cycle plants are introduced, we can expect higher efficiencies to be reached. Since almost all recent and new U.S. electrical power plants are powered by natural gas-burning, high-efficiency gas turbines, one has solid evidence of their contribution to the greenhouse gas reduction. If coal-fired thermal power plants, with a fuel-to-electricity efficiency of around 33%, are swapped out for combined-cycle power plants with efficiencies on the order of 60%, it will lead to a 70% reduction in carbon emissions per unit of electricity produced.


Author(s):  
Richard Curtis ◽  
Warren Miglietti ◽  
Michael Pelle

In recent years, orders for new land-based gas turbines have skyrocketed, as the planning, construction and commissioning of new power plants based on combined-cycle technology advances at an unprecedented pace. It is estimated that 65–70% of these new equipment orders is for high-efficiency, advanced “F”, “G” or “H” class machines. The W501F/FC/FD gas turbine, an “F” class machine currently rated at 186.5 MW (simple cycle basis), has entered service in significant numbers. It is therefore of prime interest to owners/operators of this gas turbine to have sound component refurbishment capabilities available to support maintenance requirements. Processes to refurbish the Row 1 turbine blade, arguably the highest “frequency of replacement” component in the combustion and hot sections of the turbine, were recently developed. Procedures developed include removal of brazed tip plates, coating removal, rejuvenation heat treatment, full tip replacement utilizing electron beam (EB) and automated micro-plasma transferred arc (PTA), joining methods, proprietary platform crack repair and re-coating. This paper describes repair procedure development and implementation for each stage of the process, and documents the metallurgical and mechanical characteristics of the repaired regions of the component.


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