Dynamic Behavior of a Solar Hybrid Gas Turbine System

Author(s):  
Christian Felsmann ◽  
Uwe Gampe ◽  
Manfred Freimark

Solar hybrid gas turbine technology has the potential to increase the efficiency of future solar thermal power plants by utilizing solar heat at a much higher temperature level than state of the art plants based on steam turbine cycles. In a previous paper the authors pointed out, that further development steps are required for example in the field of component development and in the investigation of the system dynamics to realize a mature technology for commercial application [1]. In this paper new findings on system dynamics are presented based on the simulation model of a solar hybrid gas turbine with parallel arrangement of the combustion chamber and solar receivers. The operational behavior of the system is described by means of two different scenarios. The System operation in a stand-alone electrical supply network is investigated in the first scenario. Here it is shown that fast load changes in the network lead to a higher shaft speed deviation of the electric generator compared to pure fossil fired systems. In the second scenario a generator load rejection, as a worst case, is analyzed. The results make clear that additional relief concepts like blow-off valves are necessary as the standard gas turbine protection does not meet the specific requirements of the solar hybrid operation. In general the results show, that the solar hybrid operational modes are much more challenging for the gas turbines control and safety system compared to pure fossil fired plants due to the increased volumetric storage capacity of the system.

Author(s):  
K. Bammert ◽  
A. Sutsch ◽  
M. Simon ◽  
A. Mobarak

An alternative solution for solar energy conversion to the heliostat-tower and solar farm (parabolic trough) concept is presented in the form of large parabolic dish collectors using small high temperature gas turbines for producing electricity from solar thermal energy. A cost and efficiency comparison for the different solar thermal power plants has shown that the large parabolic dish with gas turbine set is a superior system design especially in the net power range of 50 to 2000 kW. The important advantages of the large parabolic dish concept are discussed. For the important components such as the gas turbo converter, the receiver and the parabolic dish collector, design proposals for economic solutions are presented. An advanced layout for a 250-kW gas turbo converter with recuperator is presented in detail.


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):  
G. E. Marin ◽  
B. M. Osipov ◽  
A. R. Akhmetshin

THE PURPOSE. The study is aimed at studying the effect of fuel gases of various component composition on the environmental performance of the GE 6FA gas turbine unit. Consider using hydrogen as primary sweat to minimize emissions and improve performance of the GE 6FA gas turbine. METHODS. To achieve this goal, the ASGRET (Automated system for gas-dynamic calculations of power turbomachines) software package was used. RESULTS. The article discusses promising directions for the utilization of CO2 using highly efficient technologies with further use or disposal. A mathematical model of a GE 6FA gas turbine unit, diagrams of changes in the main characteristics and the composition of emissions when operating on various types of fuel, including hydrogen, are presented. CONCLUSION. The studies carried out show that a change in the component composition of the gas affects the energy characteristics of the engine. The method for determining the quantitative composition of COx, NOx, SOx in the exhaust gases of a gas turbine plant is presented. The transition to the reserve fuel kerosene leads to an increase in the amount of emissions, which must be taken into account when designing systems for capturing harmful emissions with a dual-fuel fuel gas supply system. The use of hydrogen as a fuel for gas turbines allows to reduce not only the cost of fuel preparation, but also to minimize emissions and improve the performance of the gas turbine plant.


Author(s):  
Adrian Dahlquist ◽  
Magnus Genrup

The oxy-fuel combined cycle (OCC) is one of several carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technologies being developed to reduce CO2 emissions from thermal power plants. The OCC consists of a semi-closed topping Bryton cycle, and a traditional bottoming Rankine cycle. The topping cycle operates with a working medium mixture of mainly CO2 and H2O. This CO2-rich working fluid has significantly different gas properties compared to a conventional open gas turbine cycle, which thereby affects the aerodynamic turbine design for the gas turbine units. The aerodynamic turbine design for oxy-fuel gas turbines is an unexplored research field. The topic of this study was therefore to investigate the aerodynamic turbine design of turbines operating with a CO2-rich working fluid. The investigation was performed through a typical turbine aero-design loop, which covered the 1D mid-span, 2D through-flow, 3D blade profiling design and the steady-state 3D analysis. The design was performed through the use of conventional design methods and criteria in order to investigate if any significant departures from conventional turbine design methods were required. The survey revealed some minor deviations in design considerations, yet it showed that the design is feasible with today’s state-of-the-art technology by using conventional design practice and methods. The performance of the oxy-fuel combined cycle was revised based on the performance figures from the components design. The expected total performance figures for the oxy-fuel combined cycle were calculated to be a net electrical power of 119.9 MW and a net thermal efficiency of 48.2%. These figures include the parasitic consumption for the oxygen production required for the combustion and the CO2 compression of the CO2 bleed stream.


Author(s):  
Christian Felsmann ◽  
Uwe Gampe ◽  
Stephan Heide ◽  
Manfred Freimark

Solar gas turbine (GT) systems provide the opportunity to utilize solar heat at a much higher temperature than solar thermal power plants based on steam turbine cycles. Therefore, GT technology has the potential to improve the efficiency of future solar thermal power plants. Nevertheless, to achieve mature technology for commercial application, further development steps are required. Knowledge of the operational behavior of the solar GT system is the basis for the development of the systems control architecture and safety concept. The paper addresses dynamic simulation of high solar share GT systems, which are characterized by primary input of solar heat to the GT. To analyze the dynamic operating behavior, a model with parallel arrangement of the combustion chamber and the solar receiver was set up. By using the heaviside step function, the system dynamics were translated into transfer functions which are used to develop controllers for the particular system configuration. Two operating conditions were simulated to test the controller performance. The first case is the slow increase and decrease of solar heat flow, as part of a regular operation. The second case is an assumed rapid change of solar heat flow, which can be caused by clouds. For all cases, time plots of critical system parameters are shown and analyzed. The simulation results show much more complex system behavior compared to conventional GT systems. This is due to the additional solar heat source, large volumes, and stored thermal energy as well as the time delay of energy transportation caused by the piping system.


2014 ◽  
Vol 137 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
James Spelling ◽  
Rafael Guédez ◽  
Björn Laumert

A thermo-economic simulation model of a hybrid solar gas-turbine (HSGT) power plant with an integrated storage unit has been developed, allowing determination of the thermodynamic and economic performance. Designs were based around two representative industrial gas-turbines: a high efficiency machine and a low temperature machine. In order to examine the trade-offs that must be made, multi-objective thermo-economic analysis was performed, with two conflicting objectives: minimum investment costs and minimum specific carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. It was shown that with the integration of storage, annual solar shares above 85% can be achieved by HSGT systems. The levelized electricity cost (LEC) for the gas-turbine system as this level of solar integration was similar to that of parabolic trough plants, allowing them to compete directly in the solar power market. At the same time, the water consumption of the gas-turbine system is significantly lower than contemporary steam-cycle based solar thermal power plants.


Author(s):  
Naohiro Kusumi ◽  
Noriaki Hino ◽  
Aung Ko Thet

As the penetration ratio of renewable energy sources becomes larger, the fluctuations of grid load also become larger and larger because of the intermittent generation of wind power and photovoltaic power. These fluctuations cause instability of voltage and frequency in the power grid. Recently, there has been considerable research into solving these challenges, leading to development such as batteries, flywheels, and improved flexibility of thermal power plants. The batteries and the flywheels are confronted with the challenge of high initial cost for the Mega-Watt class. Improving flexibility for the thermal power plants is effective, but this improvement has several limitations such as load-follow operation capability under mechanical constraints and frequency regulation within governor-free regulating capacity. To overcome these problems, we propose a new gas turbine system named Motor-assisted Gas Turbine (MAGT). MAGT is composed of a two-shaft gas turbine: one free turbine shaft is connected to a synchronous generator rotating at a constant speed, and the other compressor shaft is coupled to an inverter-fed motor controlled at variable speed. The motor and inverter capacity is appropriate: about 5–10 % that of the gas turbine. MAGT improved the reaction rate corresponding to the load fluctuation by changing the speed of the compressor. Since the motor’s shaft, which has a compressor and a high pressure turbine, rotates at high speed and those masses are considerable, it has rotational energy of about several kWh. This energy could be charged and discharged through the converter that controls the motor speed, the same as for flywheels. This response could be much faster than conventional gas turbines, which contain huge amounts of working gas. MAGT controls its rotational energy in seconds and controls gas turbine power in minutes; thereby it improves response totally. Moreover, by assisting the compressor by using motor power, MAGT can increase gas turbine power output. Since the density of air decreases with as temperature increase, the mass of working gas is reduced. Thus, the fuel input must accordingly be reduced to suppress the combustion temperature without damaging turbine blades. As a result, power output is reduced. In such cases, a motor-assisted compressor can increase working gas. That allows more fuel input. The proposed system was evaluated using numerical simulations. The results showed that frequency variations were within ±0.1Hz and the output power was recovered under high ambient temperature.


Author(s):  
Christian Felsmann ◽  
Stephan Heide ◽  
Uwe Gampe ◽  
Manfred Freimark

Solar gas turbine (GT) systems provide the opportunity to utilize solar heat at a much higher temperature than solar thermal power plants based on steam turbine cycles. Therefore gas turbine technology has the potential to improve the efficiency of future solar thermal power plants. Nevertheless, to achieve mature technology for commercial application, further development steps are required. Knowledge of the operational behavior of the solar GT system is the basis for the development of the systems control architecture and safety concept. The paper addresses dynamic simulation of high solar share GT systems, which are characterized by primary input of solar heat to the gas turbine. To analyze the dynamic operating behavior, a model with parallel arrangement of the combustion chamber and the solar receiver was set up. By using the Heaviside step function, the system dynamics were translated into transfer functions which are used to develop controllers for the particular system configuration. Two operating conditions were simulated to test the controller performance. The first case is the slow increase and decrease of solar heat flow, as part of a regular operation. The second case is an assumed rapid change of solar heat flow, which can be caused by clouds. For all cases time plots of critical system parameters are shown and analyzed. The simulation results show much more complex system behavior compared to conventional GT systems. This is due to the additional solar heat source, large volumes and stored thermal energy as well as the time delay of energy transportation caused by the piping system.


Author(s):  
C. Kalathakis ◽  
N. Aretakis ◽  
I. Roumeliotis ◽  
A. Alexiou ◽  
K. Mathioudakis

The concept of solar steam production for injection in a gas turbine combustion chamber is studied for both nominal and part load engine operation. First, a 5MW single shaft engine is considered which is then retrofitted for solar steam injection using either a tower receiver or a parabolic troughs scheme. Next, solar thermal power is used to augment steam production of an already steam injected single shaft engine without any modification of the existing HRSG by placing the solar receiver/evaporator in parallel with the conventional one. For the case examined in this paper, solar steam injection results to an increase of annual power production (∼15%) and annual fuel efficiency (∼6%) compared to the fuel-only engine. It is also shown that the tower receiver scheme has a more stable behavior throughout the year compared to the troughs scheme that has better performance at summer than at winter. In the case of doubling the steam-to-air ratio of an already steam injected gas turbine through the use of a solar evaporator, annual power production and fuel efficiency increase by 5% and 2% respectively.


2016 ◽  
Vol 138 (06) ◽  
pp. 38-43
Author(s):  
Lee S. Langston

This article discusses various fields where gas turbines can play a vital role. Building engines for commercial jetliners is the largest market segment for the gas turbine industry; however, it is far from being the only one. One 2015 military gas turbine program of note was the announcement of an U.S. Air Force competition for an innovative design of a small turbine engine, suitable for a medium-size drone aircraft. The electrical power gas turbine market experienced a sharp boom and bust from 2000 to 2002 because of the deregulation of many electric utilities. Since then, however, the electric power gas turbine market has shown a steady increase, right up to present times. Coal-fired plants now supply less than 5 percent of the electrical load, having been largely replaced by new natural gas-fired gas turbine power plants. Working in tandem with renewable energy power facilities, the new fleet of gas turbines is expected to provide reliable, on-demand electrical power at a reasonable cost.


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