GE product to help decouple steam and power production in combined cycle

In alignment with the trend of decoupling steam production from power production in cogeneration applications in combined-cycle plants, Novel S.p.A. turned to GE Power to modernize its power station in Novara, Italy. Novel is a joint venture between the Swiss energy company Alpiq and Geogreen, owned by Radici Group.

GE will upgrade its GE gas turbine with an array of Fleet360 total gas plant services to increase power and steam for the industrial process at Radici Chimica’s chemical plant. The surplus power will be sold to the Italian “Electricity Market.” GE also will install its Asset Performance Management (APM) software solution that includes predictive maintenance capabilities and 24/7 remote monitoring from GE’s global Monitoring & Diagnostics Center in Atlanta. GE also will provide its DLN 2.6 combustion system with Mark VIe solutions, which will expand the power station's operational flexibility to meet its power demands while reducing costs.

Specifically, GE’s total gas plant services solutions will improve Novel’s operations at the Novara power station, including:

Providing the flexibility to reduce turn down from 60 percent to 38 percent, to be more opportunistic on the power generation, to double the power range and to improve margins on the Italian MSD (ancillary services market).

• Increasing gas turbine power by 3 percent and improving heat rate by 0.5 percent.
• Reducing emissions (30mg/Nm3 NO_x and CO) to better address environmental requirements.
• Increasing availability from 8,000 to 24,000 outage intervals with the DLN 2.6 technology and increasing reliability by injecting digital technology for predictive maintenance.
• Replacing obsolete systems such as controls system and parts at the end of life.

GE expects to complete the upgrade in late summer 2019.