A few, solar saturn are design right off the bat. Allison KB501 and KC501. LM2500 + can, be design to. You just loose power. GE builds a 100meg that able to do full load in 10 minutes. The frame stuff is close to. I don't get hung up on the model details, they change too fast and I work on too many machines to give you exact details. I think its in Solar Design to go full load in 10 seconds. Thats fast. Seen a few, a machine go from nothing to 22500 rpm. I don't much about their Titans, so I could wrong. I don't do alot of power gen stuff, its only 10-20% of my work. Pipeline compressor and gas plant compressor are my area. Done a few pumps machines Solar Saturn and Centaur. There are a few odd ball old industrial turbines. Like stuff that Whinney himself designed and the Garrett D900 industrial that had two or three compressor impellers instead of axial blades. Cool stuff.

Thats why you have batteries, lots....

 

I'm mostly used to recip engines so I'm always impressed with how much power can be had out of such a small package. I do some work out in the east and they are running the GE LM6000 DLE's and a couple with the Sprint system on it. I've seen the one power company turn the units off and on half a dozen times a day for peak shaving. The feed gas compressors have almost as many starts as hours.
Come across many D-R centrif's?

 

Theres a power company I visited that has 4 of the Cooper LSV-16 engines and only fires them for peak power production for maybe 8 hours a day. Old iron engines like that don't like the up and down heat cycles, especially when it takes a good 24 hours online to get the engine block and components up to temp. The things are sprinklers from all the water leaks.

 

The unit we did at at Westlock last year was started and shut down 82 times in two years, no warm up or cool down cycles. We were having issues with diaphragm alignment, we put the top half on and started bolting it down to have a look-see. We got the first 5 rows of bolting down, the back end was open over a 1/4" on the half joint. This is the same unit that blew the front packing glands out and flooded the front standard with steam. When I cleaned it out, there was zero oil in it, just water. Bearings love water!

 

I've worked on lots of Dressor, Clarke, Elliott, Cooper and Nouvo Pignone compressors. There are differences between pipeline or gas plant or refinery compressors? LM6000 are good engine, most are just used as peakers. They don't limit on egt or rotor speed to often, its more on emmissions. You running the DLE (dry low emmission) or a SAC(non emmission) LM6000 engine.

I would like to see the 400meg engine and see how it works. It must be a monster.

 

I take care of the feed gas compressors, I did help TCE swap out a an engine one time when I was there with nothing to do, pretty neat stuff. Like I said the power/size ratio is almost unbelievable. TCE has two DLE's installed and they run 24/7 base loaded, they have HRSG's hanging off the tail pipe. Emera has a couple non DLE's with the Sprint water injection, I guess the water helps with NOX and they can pull a few more MW out of them. Emera's are used only for peaking. The even bring their 130 MW steamer up and down every day.
I work for one of the OEM's mentioned above, that's one if the reasons I like seeing what's else is out there.

 

How much water are they using on the turbine? I've seen some ugly water damage on turbines that wheren't set-up right? Wheres the water injected at? Or you using steam?

 

The water is injected into the air inlet as well as inbetween HP/LP compressors. I think they use bleed air to help atomize the de-min wateralso. I can't remember how much they said the inject, 40 GPM seems to ring a bell.

 

Did I ever stumble into a cool chat. Worked construction at Whitecourt, did some background work with Westlok, did the start-up work on the 25 MW unit in Grande Prairie. Done some oilfield generation work too! There is some cool equipment out there, and we're lucky to be able to play with it

 

DRD, you using water for more hp or for emission? I know you need lots of clean, clean water for this to work right. I saw one engine that was fully covered with water deposits on the blading. It was cheaper to run a Alstom Tornado to destruction than upgrade for more HP. Three months of use paid for a new engine, so nobody cared about it.

 

The water injection both reduces NOx and allows a few more MW of power. I'm not sure what they were shooting for when they spec'd the units though. My involvment mostly centers around the fuel gas compressors anytime I'm out there. Emera has a water plant on site for make up water to support the steamers, so they have a good source on site.
I think I've seen Emera pull low 50's (MW) out of the LM6000's with Sprint. TCE normally has a base load of 40-45 MW on their LM DLE's.