minimize emissions and water consumption, reduce start-up fuel and maximize plant efficiency with minimized plant complexity.
PE: Discuss what you offer as retrofits to existing simple and combined cycle NG units to allow them to meet the demands of today’s power market?
Fukumoto: Responding to the power industry’s need for fuel flexibility solutions, GE Energy recently introduced OpFlex Wide Wobbe, which provides customers with the ability to operate continuously across a range of natural gas-derived fuels of varying compositions while maintaining performance and still have reliability and operating flexibility. The newest OpFlex offering can be used where natural gas fuel heating values fluctuate. Wide Wobbe automatically adjusts control parameters based on actual gas turbine performance and environmental conditions, allowing the unit to continue operations within emissions constraints.
With rising demand for natural gas and growth in LNG imports, the frequency and magnitude of variations in fuel composition and heating value are expected to increase. OpFlex Wide Wobbe was designed specifically with this in mind and allows customers to operate their units within +/- 5 percent variation from a baseline Wobbe Index.
Wide Wobbe is the latest addition to GE’s OpFlex technology program that provides operational flexibility enhancements for gas turbines. The program also includes OpFlex Turndown, OpFlex Peak Fire, OpFlex Auto Tune and OpFlex Cold Day.
The increased focus on energy efficiency and cleaner technology is forcing customers to consider repowering. GE has demonstrated capabilities in placing new cogeneration and combined-cycle gas turbines for customers who previously used non-GE equipment. Several of these customers have benefited from additional reliability as well as process efficiency improvements.
In addition, GE continues to advance its dry low NOX combustion technology to meet increasingly stringent emissions regulations and has developed uprate options for a wide range of gas turbines that offer output and efficiency increases.
Adams: For Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, extensive validation of new components is a fundamental step in the design and validation process before commercial offering. This philosophy also applies to retrofits of upgraded features to earlier machines. Several improvements that include more efficient blade and vane profiles, improved materials, coatings and other modifications have been applied to previous generation G machines following extensive validation at our in-house power station in Japan. These retrofits have resulted in substantial extension of parts life intervals, improved performance, lower turndowns, reduced maintenance costs and lower life cycle costs.
Boyce: Depending on the application
and specific customer need, Siemens offers a portfolio of service solutions to optimize plant flexibility. This portfolio includes, but is not limited to, diagnostics and monitoring, HRSG retrofits and plant sequencing and control improvements.
PE: Tightening reserve margins in many parts of the United States are intensifying the need for fast-start gas turbines. How are your product offerings meeting this need?
Fukumoto: In December, GE announced a 10-minute start capability option for our new 7FA turbines. Equipped with this technology, the gas turbine can achieve 70 MW of output in 10 minutes, while still maintaining 57 percent efficiency, thus providing excellent coverage in the energy markets.
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