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Abstract
This paper investigates the effect of type and level of degradation in industrial gas turbine
components on its performance under flexible operation due to working as a back-up to
renewable energy sources (RES). This investigation was carried out for a 2-shaft 100MW aeroderivative gas turbine with intercooler. Due to the influence of unpredictable nature of power
produced by RES, power plants are now operating in a flexible manner, which will require the
operator to either stop operation during high feed-in from renewables or reducing the power
output from the power plant to a certain percentage. This in turn has an impact on the gas turbine
performance and thermal efficiency, which is also affected by the type and level of degradation
of their components compared to the non-degraded gas turbines. In-House performance
simulation software (TURBOMATCH), which was developed in Cranfield University, was used
to carry out gas turbine performance modelling according to daily flexible operation scenarios
for all seasons. These daily operating scenarios, which describe the power settings and ambient
conditions for a period of 24 hours, were developed from data obtained from the UK national
grid and the meteorology office data base. Different levels of degradation in mass flow and
efficiency for low-pressure compressor and high-pressure turbine were applied in this study.
Results illustrate an obvious impact of degradation type and level on fuel flow, turbine entry
temperature, blade cooling temperature, shaft rotational speed and thermal efficiency for
different seasons. This study has resulted in a tool which may be useful to power plant operators
in understanding the various operating scenarios according to the criteria they wish to choose