POWER March 2016 - 11

4. Ignition of the 9HA gas turbine.
GE celebrated first fire-startup and acceleration
to full speed-of its much-awaited 9HA.01
gas turbine model installed at an Électricité de
France power plant in Bouchain, France, last
December. Courtesy: GE
Europe's largest road transports) to Bouchain,
France, where it was installed at
a combined cycle power plant owned by
French utility Électricité de France (Figure
4). With first fire achieved in December,
the turbine is on schedule to enter commercial
service in mid-2016, GE said.
The company claims customers are lining
up for its HA technology. At least 25 orders
are in backlog among 78 customers that have
been technically selected in 12 countries.
Along with the 9HA.01 turbine, GE is
also offering a 519-MW 9HA.02 model.
Both air-cooled 50-Hz gas turbines are set
apart from GE's previous H-class fleet by
their simpler configuration. They feature a
fast 10-minute ramp-up from " start command "
to full load, and up to 70 MW per
minute ramping capability in a 1 x 1 configuration
or 140 MW per minute in a 2 x
1 configuration. " The economies of scale
created by this high power density gas turbine,
combined with its more than 62 percent
combined-cycle efficiency, enables the
most cost-effective conversion of fuel to
electricity to help operators meet increasingly
dynamic power demands, " GE said.
In parallel, the company is developing
mercial operation (Figure 3). Meanwhile,
at least 76 H-class gas turbines are under
contract worldwide.
First Ignition of GE's 9HA Gas Turbine.
GE on December 17 switched on its
very first 9HA gas turbine-a 400-ton behemoth
it claims is the world's largest and
most efficient gas turbine.
A 9HA.01 prototype was tested in January
2015 in South Carolina. A 397-MW unit
was manufactured in May at the company's
Belfort Gas Turbine Center of Excellence in
France and then transported (in one of
its 7HA.01/.02 gas turbines for 60-Hz applications.
The 7HA platform features a
280-MW to 346-MW simple cycle output
and 62% combined cycle efficiency. Testing
is ongoing in South Carolina, but GE
already has customers lined up, including
Exelon, the Tennessee Valley Authority,
PSEG Power, and South Korea's GS Power.
The First U.S.-Manufactured JSeries
Turbine. MHPSA shipped its first
495-MW M501J gas turbine manufactured
at the company's Savannah Machinery
Works facility (Figure 5) on January 26.
The 300-ton J-Series turbine (which is the
5. First made in the U.S. Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems America this January
shipped the first U.S.-manufactured M501J gas turbine from its Savannah Machinery Works
facility in Georgia. Courtesy: MHPSA
company's 28th) is being shipped to Grand
River Dam Authority in Oklahoma to replace
an old coal-fired unit.
" What makes the J-series gas turbine
so unique is that it is the first and only
turbine in commercial operation today
capable of achieving 1,600C (2,912F) turbine
inlet temperatures while delivering
efficiencies approaching 62% in combined
cycle mode, " explained David Brozek, an
MHPSA senior vice president.
Lower Coal Utilization in
China Pegged in Part to
Massive Coal Power Glut
Tremors in China's economy rattled its
power sector last year. For the first time
since the Cultural Revolution in 1968, the
country's power generation dropped from
the previous year-modestly, by 0.2%,
but a decline that experts say is symptomatic
of more to come.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics,
by the end of 2015, the country of
1.37 billion people saw a population spurt
of 6.8 million since 2014 and nominal
growth of 8.9% in the national per capita
disposable income of residents. But owing
to economic pressures, China's electric
power generation fell to 5.6 trillion kWh,
plunging 3.7% in December alone.
Over 2015, the nation's total thermal
power generation fell 2.8%, to 4.21 trillion
kWh-representing about 75% of the total
power mix (down from 76.96% in 2014).
That could also be because, determined to
win a war against pollution, the country's
State Council recently tightened rules for
inefficient coal power plants. On December
2, for example, it announced ambitious
plans that will force coal generators to upgrade
and slash emissions of major pollutants
by 60% before 2020. In comparison,
hydropower surged 4.2%, to 996 billion
kWh in 2015, claiming a 17.7% share.
However, some observers say China is
grappling with a more insidious issue.
Confirming industry estimates, China's
National Energy Administration (NEA) on
January 29 said that utilization of all power
plants fell to their lowest level since
1978, down 8.1% compared to the previous
year. The hardest hit were thermal generators,
which saw utilization rates at an
average of 4,329 hours last year, and even
below 3,500 hours in some regions. At
the end of 2014, by comparison, thermal
power generation was up 6.7%, claiming
a 73.8% share of China's generation mix,
and utilization averaged 5,128 hours.
Some accounts put surplus coal plant
capacity at between 130 GW and 200 GW.
March 2016 | POWER
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