The FlexEfficiency 50 Combined Cycle Power Plant is GE’s latest innovation in gas turbine technology, engineered to deliver cleaner, more efficient energy onto the power grid and into our homes. The first product in GE’s new FlexEfficiency portfolio, the FlexEfficiency 50 plant will enable the integration of more renewable resources onto the power grid by combining efficiency and flexibility to rapidly ramp up when the wind is not blowing or the sun is not shining, and to efficiently ramp down when they are available.
Demand for renewable energy is growing. As additional renewable sources join the grid, reliable power generation and stress on the grid both become larger issues. GE’s new natural gas-driven plant can accelerate the widespread adoption of renewable power generation around the world. Its flexible, jet engine-based technology addresses variability, reliability, and the need for lower fuel use and operating costs. The ecomagination-qualified FlexEfficiency 50 plant does this while simultaneously helping utilities take advantage of the growing trend to use abundant, cleaner-burning natural gas for power generation.
* Trademark of the General Electric Company
Environmental Benefits
When compared to GE’s current technologies, a typical plant that varies its output depending on conditions will save approximately $2.6 million dollars per year under a typical operating profile of 4,500 hours per year at a natural gas price of about $10 per million btu. Under the same profile, the plant would have annual fuel savings of 6.4 million cubic meters of natural gas, equivalent to the annual natural gas consumption of more than 4,000 EU households. It would also have annual CO2 emissions reduction of more than 12,700 metric tons - equivalent to removing more than 6,000 cars from EU roads. Each plant also avoids 10 metric tons of NOx annually.
Operating Benefits
The FlexEfficiency 50 plant using GE’s advanced 9FB Gas Turbine is rated at 510 megawatts with greater than 61% efficiency, significantly reducing the amount of fuel needed to create power. The plant achieves a ramp-rate of more than 50 megawatts per minute, twice the ramp-rate of today’s industry benchmarks. The technology allows the plant to turn down to 40% of its load while maintaining emissions guarantees and it starts in less than 30 minutes. It can be integrated with a concentrated solar power field to achieve more than 70% efficiency and it offers a 10% smaller footprint than existing combined cycle power plants with equivalent output. (A combined cycle plant uses gas and steam turbines working in tandem to make efficient use of fuel.)
