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GE launches highly flexible power plant with over 61 per cent efficiency
- 12 years ago (2011-05-26)
- Junior Isles
GE has announced what it is calling a “first-of-its-kind power plant” engineered to deliver an unprecedented combination of flexibility and efficiency. The ‘FlexEfficiency 50’ combined cycle power plant is rated at 510 MW and is said to offer fuel efficiency greater than 61 per cent.
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With the ability to rapidly ramp up and down in response to fluctuations in wind and solar power, the technology is designed to enable the integration of more renewable resources into the power grid.
The plant is the result of an investment of more than $500 million in research and development by GE.
GE says that while power plants today can provide flexibility or high efficiency, this power plant will deliver an unprecedented combination of both. The company says it has drawn from its jet engine expertise to engineer a plant that will ramp up at a rate of more than 50 MW per minute, “twice the rate of today’s industry benchmarks”.
Paul Browning, vice president, thermal products for GE Power & Water said: “For years we have been working to develop technology that can, in the same breath, deliver breakthrough efficiency and deal head-on with the challenge of grid variability caused by wind and solar. The need for combined flexibility and efficiency is even more pressing today as countries around the world establish new emissions standards.”
GE engineers were able to avoid the typical trade-offs between flexibility and efficiency by approaching the plant design from a total equipment and control systems perspective. The FlexEfficiency 50 plant is aimed at the 50 Hz market and is based around an evolution of the 9FB gas turbine, which uses air-cooling for the turbine blades. The plant is engineered for flexible operation by integrating the gas turbine with a 109D-14 steam turbine, which runs on the waste heat produced by the gas turbine; GE’s advanced W28 generator; a Mark VIe integrated control system that links all of the technologies; and a heat recovery steam generator.
The FlexEfficiency 50 plant is the first product in GE’s new FlexEfficiency portfolio. The company plans to introduce a version for the 60 Hz market at a later date.
The first FlexEfficiency 50 unit is scheduled to be shipped in 2014 for an expected start-up in 2015.