GE’s latest hardware to increase efficiency at Afam VI, Azito power plants

General Electric’s (GE’s) recent hardware upgrades will help to increase efficiency and output at Afam VI and Azito power plants in Nigeria and Cote d’Ivoire respectively.

The MXL2 upgrade on Shell Petroleum Development Company’s Afam VI plant will give additional 30MW capacity, enough power for approximately 200,000 Nigerian homes. In addition to increasing power output by up to 30 MW at Afam VI power plant, the upgrades on the turbines are expected to deliver a combined-cycle efficiency increase, resulting in significant fuel savings and reduced CO2 emissions.

“It will always be the lowest dollar per kilowatt hour supply because of its efficiency and economics of scale”, Guy DeLeonardo, general manager for GE Power’s Gas Power Systems business told Businessday on the sidelines of International Media Tour of the company’s facilities in Greenville.

In Cote d’Ivoire, Azito signed an agreement to upgrade two gas turbines at the company’s combined-cycle power plant and marks GE’s first GT13E2 MXL2 gas turbine upgrade order in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The nature of the upgrades at Afam VI and Azito power plant projects means that GE’s solutions will also extend inspection intervals for the gas turbines thereby reducing maintenance and repair expenses, which, in turn, will reduce overall plant costs and result in improving profitability.

The company in an official statement stated that the new MXL2 with Additive Manufactured Performance (AMP), the world’s first upgrade solution for GE’s GT13E2 gas turbines that uses key components manufactured using additive technology.

The addition of additive manufactured parts into the MXL2 solution represents a turning point in the global power generation industry and confirms GE’s commitment to keep its mature fleets competitive in today’s very dynamic marketplace. The new technology can help gas plant power producers save up to $2 million in fuel annually, while opening up the potential for additional revenue of up to $3 million annually in new power capacity.

“We are continuing to invest in new technologies to keep our installed base competitive – the new MXL2 with AMP upgrade could not be manufactured with conventional methods and marks the first-of its kind solution with the injection of components manufactured by additive technologies,” said Scott Strazik, president and CEO of GE’s Power Services business.

“Because these components are made with a lightweight configuration and can be engineered to include advanced cooling channels, they help the gas turbine run more efficiently, representing a new frontier in turbine engineering and production. These savings translate directly into increased performance and provide turbine operators with greater fuel efficiency and more capacity. We’re excited to bring this technology to our GT13E2 fleet, which we acquired from Alstom in 2015,” Strazik added.

The new MXL2 with AMP include two components produced by GE’s Additive Manufacturing Works (AMW) teams in Birr, Switzerland, and Greenville, South Carolina, United States: the first-stage turbine vanes and heat shields. These parts are among the turbine’s hottest-running components, and the significant amount of cooling air they traditionally require impacts the engine’s performance. Additive printing allows GE to use advanced cooling designs that considerably reduce the amount of cooling air the parts need, improving the turbine’s performance and offering operators potentially millions of dollars in benefits per year.

The breakthrough technology can significantly elevate the output and efficiency of existing GT13E2 gas turbines. It is capable of reducing component cooling requirements by up to 25 percent, increasing output up to 21 megawatts (MW) in combined-cycle configuration, achieving efficiency improvement of up to 1.6 percent in combined-cycle configuration and delivering maintenance intervals of up to 48,000 hours.