Case Study

Air Cooled Condenser Commissioning

cooled condense, before going back to the boiler feed stream.

Engineering the Solution

Figure 1: MobileFlow DI Trailer

Project Background
A U.K. Power Station was constructed incorporating two industrial gas turbines, each with an output capacity of 800MW, at approximately 60% efficiency. The power station also includes a Heat Recovery Steam Generator, a Steam Turbine and a large Air Cooled Condenser which is built to process 880 gpm (200 m3/hr) of condensate. Commissioning of the power plant included hydro testing, steam blow and flushing. This was undertaken prior to the plant start-up, synchronisation of plant and subsequent air-cooled condenser clean up. Air-cooled condensers are popular in many Combined Cycle Gas Turbine (CCGT) plants, renewable energy and Combined Heat and Power (CHP) plants across Europe. Environmental issues including space constraints and a suitable water source have prompted power plant designers to utilize this technology on the condensate recycle loops rather than traditional water-cooled condensers. In fact, water cooled condensers were not selected here as their use at other local power stations was causing localized water heating of the surface water.

Six MobileFlow DI trailers were used to each produce 264 gpm (60 m3/hr) continually, before being exchanged and returned to the GE service centre, for offsite regeneration of their ion exchange resin. The condensate polishing service utilized two MobileFlow trailers, pre-treated with two 100 micron duplex filters to remove large particulate fouling in the condensate return. Each polishing unit was loaded with, three vessels of strong acid cation and three vessels of mixed bed, ion exchange resin. This treated the condensate with 30-50 ppm Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) and 3-20 Nephelometric Turbidity Unit (NTU), to produce 440 gpm (100 m3/hr) of demineralized water. Each trailer was able to produce 925,000 to 1.1 million gallons (3500 to 4000 m3) of demineralized water before being exchanged for offsite regeneration. Operating for 15 days, in total, almost 2.6 million gallons (10,000 m3) of recycled condensate was polished.
Table 1: Trailer Specifications
Outlet Conductivity Condensate Temperature Outlet Silica 0.5 S/cm 113F (45C) <20 ppn SiO2

The GE Solution
During the commissioning phase the 1200MW CCGT power station required additional water to complete the commissioning. GE used MobileFlow* DI trailers to provided the additional demineralizer make up water for the steam blow and precommissioning testing. Additionally, MobileFlow condensate polishing trailers were used to polish and recycle the returned condensate from the air

Design benefit
The maintenance outage frequency of the gas turbines is directly linked to the number of plant shut downs and start-ups. By utilizing a continuous process system capable of removing all crud and dissolved contaminants from the condenser effluent stream the power station was able to remain online throughout the start-up phase of the air cooled condenser.
Find a contact near you by visiting www.ge.com/water and clicking on Contact Us. * Trademark of General Electric Company; may be registered in one or more countries. 2010, General Electric Company. All rights reserved. CS1115EN Jun-10

The condensate polishing units also provided a secondary benefit of heat recovery, and thus saving fuel, as well as minimizing the requirement for further make up water normally required due to the discharge of the contaminated condensate. With the worlds largest mobile water purification fleet GE was able to provide a solution and get it to site within a few hours of the customer requesting the service. GE's specially trained field service representatives (FSR) commissioned the trailers and maintained them in full operation. After a short while of commencing the operation the fleet of trailers were providing high purity water allowing the customer to continue their own operations unhindered.
Figure 2: GE Patented Mobile Systems

Figure 3: The GE Design

Page 2

CS1115EN