Abdulnaser Sayma, University of Sussex, UK

Vision

Improved performance of gas turbine components and intelligent system integration will enhance fuel efficiency and environmental performance of future power generation units.

Background

In all future power generation scenarios, gas turbines will utilise carbon based fuels such as natural gas, oil, coal and biomass. In addition, there is an urgent need to reduce CO2 emissions in the future. This target has to be reached in two different ways. In the short to medium term, significantly higher cycle efficiencies are a measure to decrease the CO2 emissions of gas turbine-fired power plants. This will include the efficiency improvement of conventional gas turbine cycles, but also the implementation of new advanced processes. For the longer term, the zero CO2 emission power plantswill be the appropriate target. Therefore, in the future, considerable efforts have to be directed to the development and improvement of CO2 capture and storage technologies.

Research Areas

The following priority research areas have been identified:

• Upgrading and retrofitting of existing units (e.g. fogging & adsorption chiller)
• Efficiency improvement of the gas turbine related to
  • Increased peak efficiency for base load engines
  • Optimisation of the gas turbine efficiency over a wide operating range
• Cycle optimisation, including the possibility of CO2 capture, for:
  • Gasification systems for coal and, to a minor extent, biomass, expected to mainly concentrate on combined cycles
  • Combination of a combined cycle and biomass fuelled system for improved CO2 capture and storage
  • Wet turbine cycles
• Turbomachines for CO2 free processes such as fuel cell / GT hybrid cycles
• Hydrogen fuelled gas turbines