THE ENERGY INDUSTRY TIMES - JULY 2018
Technology 15
At your service
With large gas turbine sales struggling in Europe and other parts of the world, generating revenue through servicing
and upgrading existing fleet is becoming more important. GE is looking to expand in the market through its Cross
Fleet solution – a range of capabilities to service and advance the performance and reliability of other original
equipment manufacturers’ gas turbines. Junior Isles reports.
As gas turbine manufacturers
struggle in a number of geographic
markets, some are
looking at other ways of generating
revenues from the business. In May,
GE’s Power Services business unveiled
what it is calling its ‘Cross-
Fleet’ gas turbine capabilities.
The move comes against a backdrop
that has seen global large gas
turbine sales fall from 180 units in
2016 to a projected 100 units this
year, according to industry estimates.
Speaking during a press call on the
market and GE’s plans for servicing,
Scott Strazik, the recently appointed
President and CEO of GE’s Power
Services business said: “The gas turbine
market in Europe has been complicated,
to say the least – with economic
dynamics and renewables
growth – but we are seeing a number
of potential opportunities that will
play out for us in the next 12-24
months.
“The utilisation of machines over
the last five years has been falling…
that said, in southern Europe, in places
like Spain and Italy, we are actually
seeing utilisation rates go up. On
average, our fleet in Europe runs for
about 5000 hours a year… the grid is
changing and demand is changing
but it’s a market where we still see a
lot of opportunity to service our fleet
in different ways and service our
customers.”
GE has a fleet of about 7500 gas
turbines, with associated balance-ofplant
and, according to the company,
the central goal of Cross Fleet is to
expand the installed base in which it
installs its technology.
The first two other OEM turbine
models being addressed are Siemens’
SGT-800 and Mitsubishi’s 501F
units. GE estimates there are 300
501F units operating worldwide,
mostly in the Americas and Asia and
believes it can bring significant value
to the table in terms of heat rate. The
SGT-800 – until now solely serviced
by Siemens – also represents a market
of about 300 units, predominantly
in Europe, Russia and more recently,
Thailand.
Explaining the thinking behind
Cross Fleet at a later meeting in
Baden, Switzerland, for the introduction
of the offering, Strazik said:
“Cross Fleet is not just about servicing
other OEM machines; it’s
about taking those machines and
making them our own – adopting
those machines and inserting our
technology.”
Martin O’Neill, General Manager
of GE Power’s Services division
added: “It’s about growing the GE
fleet, and the way we achieve that is
by bringing significant value to the
table.”
Essentially GE says it will introduce
its developments in alloys, thermal
barrier coatings, experience with
cooling and advances in computational
modelling, which allows
tweaks in the turbine for better aerodynamic
and cooling air flow. This in
turn permits higher firing temperatures
or the same firing temperature
for prolonged periods.
O’Neill points out that GE has
some “heritage” on the SGT800
through its acquisition of Alstom. He
noted that a lot of the development
work around combustion and hot gas
path was actually performed in
Baden before Alstom sold its industrial
gas turbine business to Siemens
in 2003. This, he believes, puts GE
in a much better position when it
comes to implementing improvements
that can benefit customers.
“For an operator or customer/user
of an SGT800 specifically, which is
very strong in the cogen and industrial
space, increased performance
output can mean additional monetisation
if they can sell the additional
base load power. It can also be additional
process heat and steam,” said
O’Neill. “We’re doing all of this with
the improvements in combustion,
swirl and blade aerodynamics.” He
added that improvements were also
being made possible through more
complete combustion, which translates
into a heat rate improvement.
“This gives an uptick in the power
output,” he said.
On the SGT800, GE says its upgrades
can lead to about a 6 per cent
improvement in power output and
1.5 per cent increase in efficiency,
depending on the platform – the
SGT800 essentially has three platforms,
or evolutions: A, B and C.
Platform C was introduced in the late
1980s/early 1990s; Platform B in the
mid-2000s and Platform C being the
current version. In terms of operability,
the Cross Fleet solution can improve
flexibility by allowing turndown
to 40 per cent of full load,
while staying within NOx emissions
limits.
Notably, GE claims the introduction
of its technologies to the machine
will allow the time between
overhauls to be increased from the
OEM’s published 24 000 effective
operating hours (EOH) to 40 000
EOH.
“For someone running an industrial
application, that could be the difference
between having to take the machine
down in winter or in summer.
It also gives them flexibility to sequence
with balance-of-plant for outages,”
said O’Neill.
Looking at Mitsubishi’s 501F,
which was essentially the old Westinghouse
machine, GE again has
gained knowledge and experience as
a result of historical acquisitions.
Westinghouse had a technology collaboration
with Westinghouse Power
Generation before Siemens bought
the Westinghouse division in 1998.
At this point there was a technology
split on the F-class units, resulting in
the Mitsubishi 501F and the Siemens
SGT6 5000F.
O’Neill therefore pointed out:
“Whether it’s a Mitsubishi or Siemens
machine, in whatever region of
the world, we have a Cross Fleet solution
for that configuration.”
He says the 501F has “a few sticky
reliability issues” in terms of blade
fatigue, last stage blades and bearing
sag in the two-stage exhaust
section, which Cross Fleet can address.
Again this allows operators to
extend outages, etc. And on output
and efficiency, he added that the
company was trying to “bring value
to the table”.
O’Neill explained: “On these machines
it’s more pronounced than on
the SGT800 – we think we can
achieve about an 8 per cent improvement
on performance and about a 2.5
per cent improvement on heat rate.
We believe this is significant and sets
us apart from other service providers
in this space.”
As with the SGT800, all of this is
achieved through a similar combination
of: improved alloys; thicker
thermal barrier coatings that are
more durable and resistant; improved
cooling; combustor DLN (dry low
NOx) design; etc.
At the same time, GE says it has
also been building its capabilities in
supply chain and operations to complement
its existing service team
around the world.
“Over the last about 18 months,
we’ve really built up our infrastructure
and our capability,” said Paul
Wise, the operations leader for
Cross Fleet. “We’ve been looking at
what we can already use from the
existing GE and Alstom service
platforms. And then developing the
repairs technology, extending our
field service tooling field service execution
capability and bringing in
people that have experience on
these frames.”
The company already appears to
be reaping the rewards of its efforts.
“We’re having a lot of discussions,
particularly in Latin America where
base load output is an issue and
there’s strong demand for more
power,” said O’Neill. “Customers
can do a like-for-like outage with an
existing OEM, or they can approach
GE and we can do an outage in a
similar time frame – but at the end
of it, give them a significantly improved
machine.”
This is its third year of significant
investment during which GE has
been testing, dialoguing, signing and
executing orders. Already the company
says it has a more than $200
million backlog in orders – 15 of
which have been completed and one
that is ongoing.
Looking forward, O’Neill says
that Cross Fleet is a “proof-point of
scalable technology and service
platform”. And he is confident of
extending it to other machines. He
concluded: “The order backlog is a
promising start and I’m glad we
have penetrated on both platforms
but I would like this business to go
at least 2x in the next 12 months.”
GE’s Birr factory in Baden
where development work
around combustion and hot
gas path was performed