POWER GENERATION
The upgraded 7FA will begin shipping in early 2012 and will be manufactured at GE Energy’s gas turbine facility in Greenville, South Carolina, U.S.A.
Sign of the Times
Growing trend toward increased use of
natural gas drives gas turbine advancements
GE has introduced its upgraded
Frame 7FA gas turbine to meet growing
performance requirements for power
plant operators. The upgraded turbine
is designed to help power plant operators reduce their total cost of ownership
and environmental impact by allowing
them to use less fuel to generate power.
The continuing evolution of GE’s gas
turbine technology supports a growing
industry trend toward the use of natural
gas. A recent report by the Colorado
School of Mines indicated that following
recent discoveries, the United States now
has more than 50. 9 trillion m3 of natural
gas, the equivalent of 320 billion barrels
of oil — more than Saudi Arabia’s 264
billion barrels. That available supply,
coupled with the current low cost and
the fact that natural gas emits less carbon
than other fossil fuels, has spurred many
power generators to consider switching
from other fuels to natural gas.
A typical power plant operating two
new 7FA gas turbines with a single
steam turbine in a combined-cycle con-
figuration would achieve a fuel cost
savings of more than US$2.1 million
per year at a natural gas price of US$6
per MMBtu when compared to a simi-
lar plant with an earlier version of the
7FA for equivalent net plant output.
This updated plant would also avoid
the emissions of more than 19 000
metric tons of CO2 per year compared
to the earlier version, an improvement
equivalent to the CO2 emissions of
approximately 3800 cars on U.S. roads.
