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Middle and Far East markets drive demand for turbine technologies

Paul Boughton

Demand for efficient turbine technology remains high as a raft of new power generation projects are announced around the world, particularly in the fast-growing Far East and Chinese markets.

Siemens Energy has received an order from Saudi Arabia for the supply of components for a combined cycle power plant with an associated seawater desalination facility.

The company is to supply 12 gas turbines, ten heat-recovery steam generators, five steam turbines, and the associated auxiliary and ancillary systems for the Ras Az Zawr power plant.

The order is valued at more than US$1bn (EUR720m), making it one of the largest that Siemens has won in the Middle East. The purchaser is a consortium that includes the Al Arrab Contracting Company and the Chinese SepcoIII Electric Power Construction Corporation. The start of commercial operation is scheduled for early 2014.

The Ras Az Zawr facility will be built approximately 75km northwest of Jubail. The 2400MW plant will supply electricity to an aluminium smelting plant, and approximately 225 million gallons/day of drinking water for the capital city Riyadh with its five million inhabitants.

Siemens' scope of supply encompasses 12 SGT6-5000F gas turbines, five SST6-4000 steam turbines, 17 SGen6-1000A generators, ten heat-recovery steam generators and associated electrical equipment.

Expanding capacity

Saudi Arabia is an attractive power generation market. In the next 10 years it is anticipated that the country's population will increase from 28 million to 40 million. To meet the significant rise in power demand the installed capacity will have to double. Every year it will be necessary to build new power plants with a combined capacity of at least 4000MW. The kingdom is therefore making major investments in the expansion of capacities for power and drinking water supply.

Ras Az Zawr will be the fifth large-capacity power plant built by Siemens in Saudi Arabia. The company will also supply four gas turbines for the Hail Extension II and Al Qurayat Expansion II projects.

Siemens Energy has also been awarded contracts from Thailand for 16 SGT-800 industrial gas turbines for combined cycle cogeneration plants (CCCP) under Thailand's small power producer programme (Fig. 1).

Rolls-Royce has won new contracts valued at over US$110 million (EUR80 million) for energy projects in the Middle East, India, Africa and Europe.

Utilising gas fuel

Two RB211 gas turbine power generation packages have been ordered by Total Oil to provide power to an oil facility in the Middle East, which will utilise gas fuel that would otherwise have been burned off, thereby increasing the efficiency of the operation.

Two additional RB211 turbines, powering gas compression packages, will be supplied to Slovensky Plynárensky Priemysel for use in a compressor station that is part of the company's gas transmission network in Central Europe. Rolls-Royce has already provided five turbines to the gas transmission system, which last year enabled the network to deliver 66 billion m3 of gas to homes and businesses.

The company has also signed an agreement with STX Engine of Korea, making it a packager of Rolls-Royce industrial gas turbine generating sets in the Asia Pacific region.

The agreement provides an enhanced route to market for the latest Rolls-Royce industrial gas turbine, the RB211-H63, as well as the most powerful engine in its range, the Trent 60 gas turbine.

Rolls-Royce will supply the RB211-H63 gas generator, its RT63 power turbine and the Trent gas generator from its facilities in the USA and Canada, and will also be responsible for supporting the engines in the field.

MAN Diesel & Turbo has added the 6-8MW output class to its portfolio of industrial gas turbines.

A significant reduction in the emissions of nitrogen oxide is ensured by state-of-the-art dry-low-NOx combustion chambers while at the same time an efficiency level of 34 per cent guarantees optimum fuel utilisation with regard to carbon dioxide emissions and operating costs.

This turbine family will be mainly used as generator drives in energy generation. As is the case with the company's THM series, which has proven its capabilities over decades of operation, further possible applications include driving mechanical components, for example with compressors.

A new test stand was built at the Oberhausen works in Germany specifically for the comprehensive test runs of the prototype, which lasted several months. In addition to the test stand itself, the complete measurement facilities and instrumentation were fundamentally redesigned. Thus the period from 'first fire', the initial test run of the completely assembled unit, up to operation under full load took just one week.

This fact as well as further detailed tests successfully demonstrated the high load capacity of the turbine as well as the company's considerable expertise in the field of testing and designing gas turbines.

The turbines are delivered as pre-mounted units on a base frame, complete with oil unit and ancillary units. The prototype was initially designed as a twin-shaft type which will be followed by a single-shaft design and variants with further increased output.

A modular design with unsplit casings creates the prerequisites for an efficient and cost-optimised service life.

For its part, Turbogen is focused on the supply of modern, compact gas turbine gensets that use a strong, well tested Garret 1M 831/800 engine running on natural gas, fuel oil, propane and other fuels.

Dual fuel versions

The engines can be supplied in dual fuel version and are able to switch from one fuel to the other at full load. Packages are supplied for use as stand-by operation, or for continuous duty. Cogeneration applications in either simple package, or turn-key plant, are designed exactly to customer requirements

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