Page 52 - Sustainable On-Site CHP Systems Design, Construction, and Operations

Applicability of CHP Systems 31

Gas turbines

Lean burn engines

Rich burn engines

Fuel cells Strong market position
Market position
Micro turbines Emerging position

10 100 1,000 10,000 100,000
Applicable size range (kW e )

FIGURE 2-2 Prime mover technology by size and market coverage. [From Bluestain (2001).]

5000 kW. Combustion turbines start from approximately 3000 kW. Although the
figure shows that microturbines are positioned in sizes smaller than 100 kW, new
microturbines larger than 100 kW are currently available.
Typical efficiency for each prime mover can be seen in Fig. 2-3. We note that
gas-fired reciprocating engines have superior fuel-to-electricity conversion efficiency
compared to gas turbines.

Engine and turbine positioning (<5 MW)
Efficiency (%, LHV)
42
40
!
38
@ & Gas-fired engines
36 , Microturbines
# EGT Hurricane
34 $ Pignone PGT2
∗ Allison 501 KB3
32
+ Solar Saturn
30 – P&W canada ST 18
Microturbines
28 , – ∗ @ Waukesha P48
Gas turbines & Cat 3516
26 # $ ! Solar Mercury (rec.)
24 +
22
20
0 1 2 3 4
Size (kW, thousands)
FIGURE 2-3 Prime mover technology effi ciency. [From Hedman (2001); source: GTI and Onsite
Energy.]