In June 2016, a power plant just outside Bouchain, a town in the north of France, had its moment in the sun when it broke the Guinness record for fuel efficiency. Not only did the plant’s newly installed GE gas turbine hit a net efficiency rate of 62.2 percent, but the turbine also could ramp up to full power within a half an hour, an important factor for utilities bringing electricity from renewable sources like wind and solar farms on the grid.
But as any engineer can tell you, there’s a different between running a piece of equipment in perfect conditions and running it in the real world. The turbine — called 9HA.01— and its variations still had to prove itself in different environments to meet the needs of customers in France, Russia, Pakistan, Japan, Texas and more.
The wait is over. “Last week, the 10-plus operating HA turbines collectively completed 30,000 hours of continuous operation — the equivalent of roughly three and a half years of production,” says Guy DeLeonardo, general manager of gas turbine products for GE Power. “We showed that the machine is living up to the high expectations set by the French world record.”
The new turbines continue to surpass industry benchmarks, DeLeonardo says. The Bouchain plant, for example, runs more reliably than its competitors, functioning 99.5 percent of the time as opposed to the industry norm of 97 percent. That small distinction can make a big difference at power plants that could lose millions of dollars every time they go offline for even just a few hours.
GE’s HA turbine power plant won the Guinness World Record for net efficiency at 62.22 percent in 2016. The company says that today’s number is closer to 64 percent net efficiency and that it could reach 65 percent by the early 2020s. Images credit: GE Power
That HA power plant efficiency has surpassed 62 percent in the field is significant. Gross efficiency, a higher number sometimes referenced during sales pitches, doesn’t account for all the auxiliary power it takes to operate the power plant. GE’s net efficiency — which better defines what a customer sells — won the Guinness World Record at 62.22 percent in 2016. DeLeonardo’s team says that today’s number is closer to 64 percent net efficiency and that it could reach 65 percent by the early 2020s. Each percentage point of efficiency translates to tens of millions of dollars for customers.
The new class of turbines also partner well with renewable energy. That’s because when neither sun nor wind is available for power, the HA turbine enables gas plants to pick up the slack. “Think grid stability,” DeLeonardo explains. “The power flow will not be affected by a cloud because you can hit the button and the lights stay on.”
The size of the turbine is also helping keep money in utilities’ pockets. Since the HA is the largest operating turbine available, power plants can replace two turbines with a single HA turbine which, like buying in bulk at Sam’s Club, helps reduce the cost per kilowatt of capacity. Turnkey costs with using the HA gas turbine can be as low as $400 per kilowatt, compared with $600 per kilowatt from plants that use smaller gas turbines.
Meanwhile, all HA turbines have kept pace with their record-breaking cousin in France, providing utilities their 62.2 percent efficiency. They also produce fewer carbon emissions. For a 1,000-megawatt power plant using HA turbines, the annual estimated emissions savings compared with an older coal-fired plant of the same size is the equivalent of removing more than 800,000 U.S. cars from the road.
These factors all came into play in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey in Texas, where two HA plants are generating 2,200 megawatts of power between Houston and Dallas. The storm knocked out power transmission, leaving 300,000 homes without power at its worst point. Despite the erratic nature of supply demand, the plants were able to operate at full capacity providing readily available and affordable energy. It’s a tiny consolation amid overwhelming destruction and loss. Nevertheless, sometimes small blessing go a long way during trying times.