Design, Development and Testing of a Gas Turbine Steam Injection and Water Recovery System

Abstract

The paper describes experience gained in design and development of gas turbine units for electrical generator or mechanical drive application featuring steam injection into the gas turbine combustion chamber combined with a water recovery system from the gas turbine exhausted gases (units are known as “Aquarius”). Prototype test rigs, and test results on prototype and commercial units are discussed. These units have power output of 16 MW (“Aquarius-16”) and 25 MW (“Aquarius-25”) with efficiency of 45% and 43%, ISO respectively. Special test rigs were designed and built to prove concept of water recovery from gas turbine exhausted gases and to study contact condenser operation over a wide range of ambient temperatures. The first prototype test rig, comprising of SPE “Mashproekt” GT 100K gas turbine engine, 100 kW electrical generator, waste-heat recovery boiler and contact type condenser started operation in 1986. To the Author’s knowledge there is one more plant in operation with water recovery from February 1993 located inside the “CARROZZERIA BERTONE” plant near Turin, Italy (Ennlo Macchi, Aurelio Poggio “A COGENERATION PLANT BASED ON A STEAM INJECTION GAS TURBINE WITH RECOVERY OF THE WATER INJECTED: DESIGN CRITERIA AND INITIAL OPERATING EXPERIENCE”, ASME paper 94-GT-17). The second prototype unit, “Aquarius-25”, comprising of SPE “Mashproekt” steam injected GT 15000S gas turbine engine, waste heat recovery boiler, contact water condenser and a generator (power output of 25 MW and efficiency of 43%) is currently in operation. This unit has accumulated more than 12,000 fired hours in development tests since January 1995. “Aquarius-16” - commercial mechanical drive unit with 16 MW power output and efficiency of 45% was built and factory tested in 1998 (more than 1600 fired hours). It was built around the SPE “Mashproekt” GT 10000S steam injected gas turbine engine. This unit is scheduled to start commercial operation at UKRGASPROM “Stavishenskaya” gas compression station (Ukraine) in 2001.