FLORENCE, ITALY (February 1, 2005) — GE Energy's oil and gas business is introducing a new Dry Low Nox combustion system that will reduce Nox emissions for its 12-megawatt class GE 10-2 gas turbine from 25 to 15 parts per million (ppm).
The new technology was announced at the GE Energy Oil & Gas Annual Meeting being held in Florence, Jan. 31-Feb. 1. Theme of the meeting, attended by more than 800 industry leaders and customers from around the world, is "New Technology Frontiers."
The new combustion system hardware and software were extensively tested at GE Energy laboratories in Greenville, South Carolina. Full-scale operability tests, conducted on a GE 10-2 engineering test rig in Florence, verified the integrated system performance over a broad range of site operating conditions.
"This new emissions technology was primarily developed to provide the capability for small/medium pipelines or other mechanical drive applications to meet increasingly tighter emissions regulations worldwide, particularly in densely populated urban areas," said Claudi Santiago, president of GE Energy's oil and gas business.
"It is fitting that this new emissions capability is being introduced at our Oil & Gas Annual Meeting, where we are focusing on the role of technology in providing solutions to some of the leading challenges of the oil and gas industry, including environmental responsibility," he added.
The 15 ppm NOx emissions level is guaranteed over operating conditions spanning 50-100% of load, and an ambient temperature range of -20° to +100° F (-29° to +38° C.) It was achieved without the use of catalytic hardware, to minimize the number of combustion parts and simplify machine maintenance.
The new 15 ppm combustion chamber features the addition of four GE5 premixed pilot burners, and also includes a flame detector, flashback thermocouples and a humming detection system for full flame control.
Reliability and robustness were key design objectives for the new system. Mapping is required only during unit commissioning, or after the replacement of a component during scheduled maintenance.
The 15 ppm combustion system is now available on all new GE 10-2
gas turbines. Current GE 10-2 users also can benefit from the new technology, since existing 25 ppm machines can easily be upgraded to the 15 ppm emissions system.
The new emissions technology also will be adapted for the GE 10-1 (single shaft) gas turbine for power generation applications. Operability tests will be scheduled for the GE 10-1 engineering test rig in Florence.
Based on the well-proven PGT 10 gas turbine, the GE 10 gas turbine is a high-efficiency, heavy duty machine developed for power generation and mechanical drive applications. Since its introduction in 1999, the GE 10 technology has continued to evolve, with improvements in output, thermal efficiency and maintenance intervals.
