As Europe pursues a green energy strategy, reciprocating engine technology is seen as a complementary solution due fast ramp rates and modular deployment, Andreas Lippert, engineering leader Distributed Power at GE told Gas to Power Journal.
He expects the use of recip engines, such as the Jenbacher J920 FleXtra, to grow as gas engines find their way into a wider variety of solutions.
“It is intrinsically flexible due to fast ramp rates but also because of the modular nature of plants built with this technology. Moreover, the J920 provides additional revenue for customers with large renewable portfolios as it allows them to provide more accurate balancing energy.”
The Italian utility ACEA Produzione recently ordered the first two GE Jenbacher J920 FleXtra gas engines (9.5 MW) to be deployed in Italy as part of the Tor-di-Valle district heating repowering project in southwestern Rome. Once revamped, the plant will produce over 15 MW of thermal power, and is meant to achieve over 80% total efficiency.
Modular units improve grid resilience
The modular nature of plants built around recip engines allows operators to gradually expand overall capacity to create backup within regions.
“Resilience is a key advantage of the modular approach as was demonstrated by Hurricane Sandy where much of the established grid was unavailable,” Lippert said, pointing to operational advantages of seamlessly controlling multiple sites.
Creating interconnected power units are a precondition to plant analytics such as GE’s industrial cloud-based platform. Predix’s digital approach enables plant operators to pinpoint problems remotely and adjust operations accordingly.
Improvements of GE’s receip engines offer up to 50% efficiency in the 10 MW class, at a testing stage. Lippert suggested “we expect commercial solutions to be available as soon as 2017.”