New Products: New GE Turbines, Better Controls at the Turbomachinery Symposium

At the Turbo Symposium, GE released a series of new products. The NovaLT 5 5 MW gas turbine (GT) is aimed at the oil & gas market. This follows the release of the larger NovaLT16 at the same show last year.

The NovaLT5 is an improved version of the GE5 turbine and builds on the technology of the NovaLT16. Seeking smaller power ranges for a wider array of power generation and mechanical drive applications, it can serve oil and gas, and industrial purposes.

The 16 MW NovaLT16 turbine was developed together with TransCanada for the pipeline sector. It boasts 37% mechanical efficiency, up to 99% availability and 35,000 hours between maintenance. The first NovaLT16 for TransCanada is due to be shipped from Florence, Italy in July 2016. The NovaLT5 will be available in both single-shaft and double-shaft configurations. It has 30.7% to 31.5% electrical/mechanical efficiency and has up to 24,000 hours between maintenance intervals due to the modular nature of both machines.

The compact design of the NovaLT5 is aimed at operations with challenging footprints or height restrictions. A high exhaust temperature also makes it well-suited to Heat Recovery System (HRS) operations.

The first 20 NovaLT5s have been sold to the China Aviation Gas Turbine Company (CAGT), a Chinese engineering company specializing in the resourcing and integration of gas turbines. CAGT will manufacture the GT packages and sell them directly.

GE also released the LM6000PF+ aeroderivative turbine. The company says it is its most efficient aeroderivative gas turbine to date. The upgraded turbine has enhanced efficiency, reliability and fuel flexibility for power and mechanical drive. Its compact size and weight make it suitable for deployment on offshore vessels. Preassembled delivery is said to cut installation time by about 30%.

“The LM6000PF+ helps to improve performance in Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) applications,” said Luca Maria Rossi, General Manager Product Management for Turbomachinery Solutions at GE Oil & Gas.

He added that six orders have already been received from Thailand’s Gulf Energy Development (GED) with Mitsui Corp (Mitsui) under EPC contract with Toyo Engineering. This customized solution for oil and gas uses the same engine as power & water applications.

It is a 54 MW standard unit with an optional increase of up to 6 MW. It has flange-to-flange thermal efficiency of 42.7%, or 56% in combined cycle. The PF+ represents a 4% power growth compared to the LM6000-PH. It makes use of the DLE 1.5 fuel system, introduced on the LM6000PF in 2004.

GE also unveiled condition monitoring and diagnostics products. The latest version of Bently Nevada’s System 1 Evolution software enables online condition monitoring for critical equipment. This ties into GE’s vision for the Industrial Internet (p. 32) to connect people, data and machines to avoid unplanned downtime.

It integrates with GE Bently Nevada’s permanently installed monitoring devices; including the 3500 monitoring system and 3701 Adapt product family to manage asset health. This release expands the capability of the software to include phase-one turbomachinery support, where high-resolution alarm and startupand- shutdown data diagnostics play a critical role in machinery management.

In addition, the new Scout200 Series portable data collectors enable data taken from equipment on a route-based monitoring program to be analyzed and turned into actionable inform a t i o n . Supported by System 1 Evolution, the Scout200 series also integrates with Bently Nevada monitoring products.

The Scout200 series is comprised of a data collector that connects to an industrial Android smartphone which runs a mobile collector app. Operators can collect vibration data, take pictures, send text messages, check email, make phone calls and run other apps on a single device. This data is exchanged with System 1 Evolution via Wi-Fi or a cellular network.

“In the past our customers may have been using two or three software solutions to analyze data coming in from their hardware monitoring and protection products,” said Erik Lindhjem, Executive Product Line Leader for Software and Services at GE Measurement & Control. “With System 1 Evolution, a single software solution integrates with a suite of hardware products to help owners and operators understand the health of every piece of equipment.” www.geoilandgas.com & www.gemeasurement.com