WTUI 2025 Keeps Aeroderivative Gas Turbine Users Ahead of Challenges

The 34th annual Western Turbine Users Inc. (WTUI) kicked off on Sunday, March 30, in sunny Long Beach, California, with its annual golf tournament followed by bowling and a welcome reception. This year’s conference welcomes more than 1,000 attendees, of whom just over 600 are exhibitors, including 146 companies exhibiting in the exhibit hall.

Over the course of the next few days, folks from GE Vernova’s aeroderivative services will participate in an informational chat for users, and authorized service providers IHI Power Services Corp. (IPSC), TransCanada Turbines (TCT), and MTU Aero Engines, as well as other independent service providers, will be on hand to help attendees solve turbine and plant issues. Following, a series of breakout sessions for GE LM2500, LM5000, LM6000, and LMS100 will give users a platform to present their operational challenges and have fellow LM users offer solutions and troubleshooting techniques.

“WTUI’s forums are very active and getting more so,” said Ed Jackson, President of WTUI and Exira Station Manager at Missouri River Energy Services in Brayton, Iowa. “With the challenging environment of acquiring timely parts and service lately, compounded by reaching maintenance intervals faster due to increased operation, it is more important than ever for users to lean on and support each other. I believe that is becoming apparent in the active user forums and increased communication between users.”

Mark Axford, President of Axford Consulting, will present his annual gas turbine business update on Monday morning with Tony Brough, an analyst at Dora Partners, including the latest trends impacting gas turbines. In 2023, overall gas turbine orders (in units) were up 3% while total MWs ordered were down 12.6% compared to 2022. For 2024, Axford had predicted a 7 - 10% uptick in orders.

Gas turbine sales are in for a shift, however, given the demand from AI data centers. Axford reported that U.S. utilities and developers “are racing to install baseload gas turbine combined-cycle power, but they can’t get it fast enough.” GE Vernova, Siemens Energy, and Mitsubishi are now scheduled to deliver their large gas turbines in 2028 - 2029. In fact, he said that large gas turbine supply is essentially sold out for the next three to four years.

“Energy providers are scrambling to add generation to meet the need,” Jackson said. “Not only is the lead time for major equipment increasing, but even the time it takes to build plants could take years to permit and build. This puts a lot of pressure on the existing generation, as many peaking plants that were originally designed to run at capacity factors of 10% or less are now running 30%, 40%, 50%, or more. We are pushing those plants harder and hitting the major maintenance intervals faster, which is putting even more pressure on an already burdened supply chain. Operators have to revise the way they used to plan and budget and work with suppliers to ensure the availability of parts and labor. It is getting more challenging to run these plants, which makes it even more important for users to attend conferences and forums like WTUI to ‘compare notes.’ Conversations at WTUI this year will no doubt include a lot of discussion on maintenance planning and parts availability to meet the increasing demand due to the addition of data centers.”

Shares of U.S. electricity generation from natural gas will remain at 40% for 2025 and 2026, down from 42% in 2024, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) Short-Term Energy Outlook, March 2025. Coal is forecasted to be around one-sixth; renewables will account for 25% and 27% in 2025 and 2026, respectively; and nuclear remains at 19% for both years.

EIA expects a 3% increase in total U.S. electricity sales (a proxy for consumption) in 2025, led by strong growth in the residential and commercial sectors.

Over the next six years, Georgia Power projects approximately 8,200 MW of electrical load growth—an increase of more than 2,200 MW in peak demand by the end of 2030 when compared to projections in the 2023 Integrated Resource Plan Update.

Monamee Adhikari, Global Marketing Leader for Aeroderivatives at GE Vernova, said the biggest strength of aeroderivative gas turbines is that they are fast, flexible, and sustainable power, so they are set up to support the rising power demand. “Since the aeroderivative fleet derives from an aviation legacy, they have very high reliability and availability metrics," he said. "GE Vernova’s aeroderivative fleet can be dispatched to provide power for any emergency on the grid in as few as 11 days. They are flexible and can operate on any kind of fuel except for heavy fuel oil. They are also a good solution to meet sustainability targets, as we now have the capability to operate at 100% hydrogen.”

Technical Sessions

The technical sessions kick off on Tuesday, April 1, and our team will provide insights from a few of them.

Folks from Donaldson GTS are speaking on How to Prevent Catastrophic Failure During Extreme Conditions. Bob Reinhardt, Regional Manager of Texas and Oklahoma, will highlight steps operators can take so that their turbines run at peak performance. He’ll break down how a static filtration system can fail in challenging environments, such as post-natural disasters, the advantages of a pulse configuration, predictive maintenance’s role in extending filter and turbine service life, and more.

During Jack Odlum’s presentation, Improving Heat Recovery Steam Generator (HRSG) Efficiency with Operational and Design Modifications, he will outline how operating and design modifications improve a combined-cycle plant’s efficiency. Odlum, the Northwest Regional Manager at HRST Inc., will share what components could be installed or upgraded to improve HRSG efficiency, factors that characterize inefficient HRSG operations, modifications that can be made on the exhaust gas side to reduce HRSG inefficiency, and some of the latest trends in HRSG operation and design.

Matt Gentry, Engineering Manager at Airflow Sciences Corp., will lead a session on flow modeling for aero powerplant performance optimization. “Modeling helps solve flow problems—it’s that simple,” Gentry said. “There are many parameters that affect gas turbine power plant performance. Efficient plant operation requires a design that is optimized for flow, temperature, ammonia, NOx, and pressure drop.”

Gentry will discuss what flow modeling entails, whether it differs for aeroderivative and single- or combined-cycle assets, how computational fluid dynamics (CFD) redesign and improve ammonia injection grids, and more.

Stay tuned for more.