By GE Reports staff
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Over the last year, GE engineers have been testing the largest, most efficient and most powerful gas turbine in the world. It weighs as much as a Boeing 747 filled to the brim and, when paired with a steam turbine, can generate enough electricity to power the equivalent of 600,000 French homes. (Its exhaust would fill up the Goodyear blimp in about 10 seconds.)
This week, GE’s factory in Belfort, France, finished the first production unit built for the French utility Électricité de France (EDF).
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Top: EDF’s gas turbine during production in Belfort. Above: Blades made from superalloy monocrystals help the HA turbine manage temperatures as high as 2,900 degrees Fahrenheit and extract more energy from fuel. The turbine channels air with variable stator vanes (the moving parts above), which were originally developed for supersonic jet engines. GE calls this concept of sharing ideas between its businesses the GE store. Image credits: GE Power & Water
Even if you don’t care a whit about gas turbines, this machine, which GE calls 9HA, is a big deal. It can convert natural gas into electricity at a sky-high 61 percent efficiency, when paired with a steam turbine.
The turbine can also zoom from cold iron to full power in less than 30 minutes. This speed is important because there are wind and solar plants cropping up all over Europe (and in other regions for that matter) and energy companies are increasingly looking for ways to smooth the supply peaks and valleys created when the sun gets behind a cloud or the wind stops blowing. The new turbine will give EDF new flexibility to integrate renewables onto the grid and respond quickly to weather changes.
“The efficiency alone is huge, but, taken all together, this is bigger than winning the Triple Crown of power generation,” says Victor Abate, president and CEO of GE Power Generation Products.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
The 9HA turbine for EDF is the second one made by GE workers. The first one is being used for testing in Greenville. Image credits: GE Power & Water
GE engineers have also placed hundreds of sensors on the turbine to monitor temperatures, vibrations and other conditions. The sensors will be able to feed the data over the Industrial Internet to software built on GE’s Predix platform for analysis. EDF can use the results to improve performance and also to schedule maintenance and prevent unplanned downtime.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Workers measuring the inside the turbine. Image credits: GE Power & Water
The first 9HA turbine will travel to EDF’s power plant in Bouchain in northwest France in June by road and by barge. GE estimates that the two-week trip, which will have the 400-ton turbine mounted on a platform the length of a football field, will be one of the largest road transports in Europe’s history.
GE’s Abate says that although just 18 months ago the 9HA turbine was not even in GE’s portfolio,the company has already $1 billion in orders. The first machines in the U.S. will serve inside two new power plants that are being built by Exelon in Texas.
Let’s see American Pharoah beat that.