LM6000 controls retrofit for peaking facilities
EthosEnergy was contracted by an asset management company to investigate and assess the control systems on four units.
- Goals
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- Increase Power Output
- Reduce Forced Outage Rate
- Sectors
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- Power generation
- Asset
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- Gas Turbines
- Location
- Southeast Texas, USA
WATCH: Real results on LM6000 controls retrofit
A case study on increased reliability and performance across two Texas peaking facilities
Project overview
EthosEnergy was contracted by an asset management company to investigate and assess the control systems on four GE® LM6000 units across two peaking facilities and was ultimately awarded a purchase order to upgrade the controls and balance-of-plant equipment. This resulted in dramatically increased reliability and improved performance.
The challenge
The customer contacted EthosEnergy and inquired about control system capabilities and solutions and asked if there was anything that EthosEnergy might be able to do to help overcome their issues with output and reliability.
Prior to the upgrade, the two sites were experiencing significant reliability issues and not meeting required start times or output requirements.
As peaking facilities, they were having to purchase megawatts (MW) to meet contractual commitments and increase staffing to troubleshoot operational issues.
The EthosEnergy solution
EthosEnergy performed an on-site assessment and found the controls to be a major contributing factor to their reliability issues. EthosEnergy then began to troubleshoot by monitoring the units remotely and performed Plant Health & Diagnostics (engine performance) evaluations.
The customer awarded EthosEnergy a purchase order and began an outage to correct the issues. EthosEnergy’s controls engineers upgraded the turbine and balance-of-plant (BOP) controls to icon™ control systems, corrected UPS issues, power distribution issues, and wiring issues among other problems. The scope also included reconfiguring existing hardware and upgrading/replacing hardware where necessary.
All of the upgrades applied met a standard, repeatable solution whereas the original configuration was very ad-hoc. The outage commitments were met and the customer has also retained EthosEnergy to provide remote support long-term.
Key results
- Start-up Reliability increased dramatically
- Increased megawatt output by approximately 2% per unit
- Solved sync-to-grid problems to satisfy ten-minute startup to full load
- Turbine controls now provide stable performance and repeatable start-up
- Improved and added to a significant portion of system manuals and drawing documentation
- Extensive on-site training during commissioning
- The sites have seen a tremendous return on the investment and were operational for over 180 combined hours during the Texas winter storms of 2021, a critical time of need for power generation
Control system upgrades
- Value driver upgrade
- Vent fan verification
- Running registers (parts life tracking)
- Throttle push
- Swift start
- Rapid refire
- Closed loop NOx control
- Shutdown snapshot
Find out more
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Gas Turbines
The largest independent service provider of gas turbine services across a wide range of heavy and light industrial frame types. We are the OEM for Fiat Avio and Mature Westinghouse fleet.
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Field and site services
As the largest global independent provider of field services, EthosEnergy has extensive experience in servicing multiple gas turbine product lines; aero-derivative, light and heavy industrial gas turbines, components and accessories.