Operational Experience of the OP16 Gas Turbine in Small Scale CHP Installations in Europe
(Room G102-G103, Auditorium Centre, First Floor)
10 Jun 15
4:00 PM
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5:30 PM
Tracks:
Theme: Flexing the Power of Gas, Theme: Urban Energy Integration - The Smart City
The trend towards more decentralized power generation in Europe has made small gas turbines an attractive complement to the large power plants. This trend, together with the increasing amount of renewable power feeding the grids, has led to additional challenges for the traditional power generation equipment. This includes more part-load operation, weaker electric grids, changing fuel compositions and new fuel sources. While facing these challenges the end users still need to meet the stricter emission limits and the requirement for high efficiency. In order to promote the development of energy efficient power solutions, certain countries within the European Union have implemented subsidy schemes. Such schemes have been proven to help smaller and medium sized industries to transit to more efficient and environmentally friendly power production by using combined heat and power solutions.
This paper will discuss the operational experience of the OP16 gas turbine, rated at 1.85 MWe, for CHP applications in Europe. The applications include both direct heating and steam generation for small industrial plants. The discussion will be exemplified by three case studies from the Netherlands and Germany. The case studies will demonstrate how smaller industries can benefit from using gas turbines by reducing their operational costs. The operational experience will be discussed in terms of wear and tear, emissions, engine efficiency and overall plant efficiency. The discussion will be exemplified by data obtained from the field. Due to the changing market conditions more flexible operation of the gas turbines are required. The paper will be concluded by describing the latest technology enhancements of the OP16 gas turbine fleet to meet the demand for more flexible operation.