OCR Text |
Show were found to be highly dependent on fuel hydrogen contents. Water injection, however, at a 0.6 water to fuel mass ratio was proven to be effective to reduce NO emissions significantly. The combustion tests with high fuel bound nitrogen (FBN) containing fuels showed that - in contrast to many earlier subscale works - only a small fraction of FBN was converted to NO under the conditions prevailing in the BBC gas turbines. II. THE ROLE OF GAS TURBINES IN THE U.S. POWER PRODUCTION The advantages associated with the gas turbines as prime movers have been widely recognized in the past 40 years and these may be listed as follows: 1. Low capital cost 2. Short delivery and installation time 3. Immediate response to power need 4. High reliability 5. High efficiency in the cogeneration/combined cycle mode Exploiting these advantages following the 1965 Northeast Blackout the U.S. electric utilities starting from a modest 1000 MW level by 1975 rapidly installed over 40,000 MW gas turbine generating capacity. Figure 1 summarizes recent position of the gas turbine in the U.S. electric utility industry [1]. It is obvious that after 1975, due to rising gas turbine fuel costs, the government imposed environmental regulation and fuel use restrictions, the growth rate has significantly dropped. Parallel with this trend, the share of gas turbine produced power - mainly for peaking - has dropped to 0.5 percent of the total net electricity generated. It is reasonable to assume that to attain a sizeable share of the utility market, gas turbines of the future must be capable to burn less expensive, lower grade fuels. This also holds true for the rapidly developing cogene-ration concepts promoted by the large energy user segment in the U.S. industry. The performance record of the BBC gas turbines clearly shows that these machines can accommodate and burn a variety of low grade fuels under ecologically acceptable conditions, thus satisfying the needs of both industrial and utility sectors in fuel cost reduction. 1.4.2 |