Release Date: August 21, 2001

MORGANTOWN, WV - With nine out of every 10 power plants to be built in the next decade likely to burn natural gas, the Department of Energy is supporting a $13.4 million effort with private industry to extend the life and improve the operations of advanced gas-fired turbine systems.

Of the four projects selected this month by the Energy Department's National Energy Technology Laboratory, two will focus on protecting turbine components from being eroded by the high heat at which modern-day gas turbines operate. The other two projects will study ways to improve the stability and performance of turbines, also with a goal of lengthening their useful operating life.

Gas turbines, once used solely for aviation, are now the workhorse in industry and have become the dominant system for new power plants, especially those designed to meet peak and intermediate power demands.

The Energy Department has successfully sponsored industry projects to develop revolutionary new gas turbines that have raised efficiency and environmental performance levels. The new research projects are intended to benefit these new machines as well as the hundreds of thousands of more conventional turbines now used in power stations and industrial factories around the globe.

The new projects were proposed by:

• Siemens Westinghouse Power Corp., Orlando, FL, which proposes to maximize the lifespan of advanced gas turbines by developing, building and installing an on-line system to monitor turbines' thermal barrier coatings, which protect the engine and components against high temperatures. Losing thermal barrier coating protection can degrade key components within the turbine, leading to premature failure and costly power outages. Increasing a turbine's operating life and reducing maintenance costs may help reduce the cost of electricity. Working with Siemens Westinghouse will be Indigo Systems, an infrared camera systems supplier, and Wayne State University, a research organization studying infrared non-destructive examination.

  Project cost: $5.12 million; proposed DOE award: $3.84 million; participant share: $1.28 million.

  Project duration: 60 months

• Solar Turbines Inc., San Diego, CA, which will team with CFD Research Corp., Siemens Westinghouse Power Corp., and the Los Alamos National Laboratory to produce a laser-stabilization system. The project will demonstrate a system equipped with a solid-state laser and low-cost durable optics that can reduce combustion vibrations that can lead to turbine instability. The system will allow operators to pinpoint locations within the turbine combustor where fluctuations in the fuel burning process can be minimized.

  Project cost: $4.485 million; proposed DOE award: $3.59 million; participant share: $898,000

  Project duration: 48 months

• Electric Power Research Institute, Palo Alto, CA, with Impact Technologies, LLC, Boyce Engineering International and Carolina Power & Light/Progress Energy, which proposes to develop a computer program that assesses the total "health"of natural gas turbines and improves their reliability, availability and maintenance. The project will adapt programs developed by the Department of Defense, the Navy and NASA to monitor aviation gas turbines.

  Project cost: $1.64 million; proposed DOE award: $1.23 million; participant share: $411,009

  Project duration: 36 months

• Electric Power Research Institute, Palo Alto, CA, which will develop a technology that assesses and manages the life of protective coatings used on natural gas turbine blades and vanes to protect them against high temperatures. EPRI and its partners, Southwest Research Institute and Turbine Technology International, will develop analytical techniques that plant operators can use to estimate the life of protective coatings. Data will then be fed into economic risk-based computer programs that the operators can use to decide whether to continue running the turbine or to take it out of service for repair or replacement.

  Project cost: $3.27 million; proposed DOE award: $2.45 million; participant share: $819,191

  Project duration: 36 months