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THE EXPERIENCE WITH MEDIA-TYPE EVAPORATIVE COOLING FOR

GAS-TURBINE POWER AUGMENTATION AT GARRI POWER STATION


O.H.M. El-Hassan1 and M.M. El-Awad2
1-Maintenance Manager, Garri Power Station 2- Faculty of Engineering, University of Khartoum
ABSTRACT
Garri power station is the biggest thermal power
station in the national grid in Sudan. Owned by the
National Electricity Corporation (NEC), the station
contains eight General Electric frame 6 gas turbines,
five of which of type PG6581 and the other three of
type PG6551. Due to the hot climate, the turbines
loose significant portions of their generation
capacities. Therefore, evaporative coolers of the
wetted media type were installed to cool the gasturbines inlet-air. The coolers caused the inlet-air
temperature of the inlet air to drop by 12-14oC and
resulted in an increase of 4 MW for each of the
PG6581 turbines and 3.5 MW for each of the
PG6551 turbines. The paper discusses the technical
and economic aspects of the power-augmentation
system that made it an exeptionally profitable
investment for NEC.
KEY WORDS
Gas turbine, Power augmentation, Evaporative
cooling, Hot and dry climate, Energy efficiency.

located at Garri power station [1]. Due to high


ambient temperature in the area at summer (average
of 42oC) the gas turbines operate at 75% of their
rated capacity at the standard ISO conditions.
Unfortunately, this happens during the hot midday
hours when the demand is high. Therefore, the NEC
decided to build an inlet-air cooling system for the
gas turbines at Garri power station and selected a
system built by Munters [2].
The project took eight months from the date of
signing the contract to operating the system. The
system cost of only 1,310,000 Euro and the short
installation time made the project attractive to NEC
considering that the installation of new gas turbine
units takes more time and costs nearly ten times that
of the cooling system. This paper reflects the
experience with the system and shows that it was an
exeptionally profitable investment for NEC. The basis
on which the wetted media was selected is
discussed together with the technical and economic
aspects of the project. The papaer also refers to
some of the problems encountered.

1. Introduction

2. Gas Turbine Power Augmentation

To meet the growing demand for electricity, power


utilities have to continuously expand their generation
capacities. Not only is the installation of new
generation plants expensive, but finding energy
sources for these new stations is also a problem.
The installation of a new power station also raises
more concerns about environmental pollution. The
need for installing new power projects can be
delayed by enhancing the production capacity of
existing power stations, which is very much needed
considering the tough challenges facing many
countries nowadays. In Sudan, a considerable part
of the thermal generation of the National Electricity
Corporation (NEC) comes from the gas-turbines

Being a constant volume-flow machine, the power of


the gas turbine is directly proportional to the mass
flow rate of air passing through it, which is directly
proportional to sucked air density. A high ambient
temperature reduces the air density and, therefore,
gas turbines designed to operate at standard
conditions of 15.6oC (60oF) loose a significant
portion of their generating capacity when installed in
hot climates [3,4]. Figure 1 shows the effect of
ambient temperature on the gas-turbine's shaftpower, mass flow-rate and thermal efficiency.

GT1-PG6581

A
R

GT2-PG6581

ST1

R
I
1

GT3-PG6581
GT4-PG6581
GT5-PG6551

A
R

ST2

GT6-PG6551

ST3

Figure 1: Effect of ambient temperature on the


gas-turbine's performance
A number of power-augmentation methods
have been used in order to compensate for the effect
of ambient conditions on the gas-turbine output. The
most common power augmentation method
increases the air mass flow-rate by cooling the inletair. Inlet-air cooling also reduces the heat-rate of the
plant [3]. Compared to other power augmentation
methods, such as steam or water injection, it has the
advantage that it does not interfere much with the
normal operation of the system because it is external
to it. By applying this reliable technology additional
megawatts can be obtained from existing gas
turbines at a fraction of the cost of installing new
generation plants. According to Boyce [3] a new
power plant costs $500 per kilowatt while inlet aircooling cost $110-120 per kilowatt of augmented
power.

I
2

GT7-PG6551
GT8-PG6581

ST4

Figure 2: Layout of Garri power plant


The climate of the area is the semi desert
climate influenced by the north-south movement of
dry northerly winds and moist southerly winds that
produce a wet summer and a dry winter [6,7]. Figure
3 shows the years average maximum and minimum
daily temperature and rainfall [7]. Due to the high
ambient temperature, there is a drop of 10 MW in
each turbine of type PG6581 and 8 MW in each
turbine of type PG6551. The total loss of power is 74
MW in the eight gas turbines. If recovered, this will
add needed power to the national grid, which suffers
from power shortage. From Figure 3, there is a
potential of 15 C for cooling the inlet air of the gas
turbines at Garri power station.

3. Garri Power Station


Garri power station is located 70 km north of
Khartoum. The station consists of eight GE frame 6
gas turbines. Four of them (located in Garri 1) are of
type PG6581, which are equipped with heat recovery
and connected to two steam turbines as combined
cycles (Figure 2). Three of the other four turbines
(located in Garri 2) are type PG6551, which were
commissioned in 2003 and used to work as open
cycles. In 2007, a fourth gas turbine, type PG6581
was added together with two steam turbines to Garri
2 block so as to become similar to Garri 1 [5].

Figure 3: The years maximum and minimum


temperature and rain fall at Garri area
4.

The System's Selection

Different systems of inlet-air cooling have been used


[8-9]. These can be divided into the following major
groups:

Evaporative: wetted media, fogging, and wet


compression/overspray.
Refrigeration: mechanical and absorption
chillers with or without thermal energy
storage.
Special Application Technologies i.e., revaporization of liquefied natural gas (LNG).
Hybrid system: a mix of mechanical and
absorption chillers.

The systems considered by NEC were


evaporative media-type cooling, evaporative fogcooling and chillers using ammonia. The main
factors affecting the selection of a suitable inlet air
cooling system were:

supplied by Munters Euroform GmbH Germany [2].


The scope of supply included the precoolers with all
necessary steel structure, water circulating pumps,
valves, and cooling pads. Figure 4 shows a
schematic diagram of the cooling system. The
principle of the system is that the inlet air passes
through the precooler's wetted pads before going to
the compressor. Cooling increases its mass flow rate
[10]. The effectiveness of the precooler is measured
by the following equation:

T1 T2
T1 Twet

(1)

where:

T1
T2
Twet

= Cooling Efficiency
= Ambient dry bulb temperature of the
air in front of the evaporator cooler
= temperature of the air behind the
cooler
= wet bulb temperature

Price: The budget was limited for this project


so that price became one of the main
factors.
Time limitation. There was a limited time to
execute the work since this project was
needed urgently to cover part of the
expected rise in power demand during the
coming summer.

Based on these factors, the two systems that


competed for selection were the media-type
evaporative cooling system and the fogging system.
Of these two, the evaporative cooling system was
selected because of the design of the gas turbines at
Garri power station. Since the air inlet ducts are
made of normal carbon steel, the use of wetted
media was deemed more suitable than fogging
which requires demineralised water. With the
evaporative coolers, the available service water can
be used without affecting the air ducts.
The selected system consisted of precoolers

1. Humidifying pad or CELdek


2. Water inlet 3. Drain
4. Bleed-off 5. Water distributor
Figure 4: Main features of the wetted-media
cooling system
5. Water Availability at Garri
The coolers used the service water available in the
plant which is taken from the Nile and treated in the
pretreatment plant of the power station. The
pretreatment system consists of presettler, clarifier,
pumps and piping to transfer the water to the power

station. Mainly aluminum polychloride is used to


remove the mud and sodium hypoclorideis is used
for the rempval of algy. The water specification is
shown on Table 1.
Table 1: Specifications of Garri service
water
No
Test
Unit
Value
1
PH
7.8
2
Conductivity
s/cm
200
3
Total Hardness
ppm
70
4
Calcium Hardness
ppm
30
5
Chloride
ppm
5.2
6
TDS
ppm
110
7
Alkalinity
ppm
76
8
Silica
ppm
8.6
9
Iron
ppm
10 TSS
ppm
<1
6. The System's Installation

7. The System's Performance


The commissioning of each unit took two days. The
temperature of the inlet air dropped by 12-14oC (2227oF) when it passed through the cooler. The
efficiency of the coolers was between 86% and to
90%. Table 2 shows the effect of the system on the
turbines' power. The system increased the power of
units 1-2-3-4-8, for which the cooler was before the
inlet air filter, by 4 MW. The power increase of units
5-6-7, for which the cooler was placed after the inlet
air filter, was 3.5 MW. In these three turbines, there
was a small pressure drop which caused the power
increase for this type to be lower than that of the
PG6581 type. The total capacity increase from this
project was about 32.5 MW, which is nearly the
power of one Frame 6 gas turbine. Table 3 shows
the effect on the gas turbines' fuel consumption,
efficiency and heat rate. Before installing the system,
the average heat rate was 12457 kJ/kWh. This
dropped to 11949 kJ/kWh after the system was
installed, saving more than 500 kJ of fuel energy per
each kWh of generation.

After a selection was made, the project started by


signing of the contract at the end of January 2008.
The purchase of equipment and the manufacturing
took two months (February to April 2008). The
Table 2: Power increase in the gas and steam
shipping of equipment to Garri station also took two
turbines
months (5 May 2008 up to 5 July 2008). The coolers
UNIT
MW
MW
MW
came in three shipments from Germany, but the
Before
After
Increase
steel works and the media came from Thailand. The
GT1
30
34
4
system's erection took about two months for all units.
GT2
30
34
4
The work went in parallel for the first three units 1-2GT3
29
32.5
3.5
3 then for units 4-5-8 and last for unit 6 and 7. For
GT4
27.5
31
3.5
units 1-2-3-4-8, the coolers were placed before the
GT5
28
31
3
inlet air filter. Each of these units was shut-down for
GT6
28
31.5
3.5
only 4 hours so as to connect the power supply to
GT7
28
31
3
the cooler equipments. Because the coolers were
GT8
31
35
4
placed behind the inlet air-filter, the system's
ST1
30
31
1
erection for unit 5 took 3 days and two days for each
ST2
30
31
1
of units 6-7. The total manpower needed for this
ST3
30
31
1
work was 85 including engineers, technician and
ST4
30
31
1
safety staff. All the staff came from the power station
TOTAL
351.5
384
32.5
itself who worked under the supervision of two
engineers from the contractor company.
Table 3: Effect on the fuel-consumption, efficiency and heat rate of the gas turbines
Before the coolers
After the coolers

UNIT

GT1
GT2
GT3
GT4
GT5
GT6
GT7
GT8

Fuel
consumptio
n
kg/s
2.2
2.3
2.13
2.13
2.21
2.34
2.24
2.5

Efficiency Heat rate


%
kJ/kWhr

30
29.8
30
29
28
27
28.5
28

11909.0
12048.7
11886.7
12353.7
12772.1
13287.0
12630.8
12767.0

A unique advanatge of the inlet-air cooling


system installed at Garri power station, that can
hardly be realised elsewhere, is that its use is not
limited to the hot summer season but covers almost
all the year around. During winter, the ambient
temperature drops to about 15-20oC, which naturaly
increases the turbines power. During this time, the
turbine output typically reaches 33-34 MW without
inlet-air cooling. Nevertheless, the dryness of the
ambient air (the relative humidity is in the range of
15-35%) gives the evaporative system a large
cooling margin. With inlet-air cooling the gas turbine
output reaches 37.5-38 MW, which means that the
system mainatins its power boosting capabaility even
during the winter months.
No major problems have been encounterd with
the system during the seven months of operation
until now. The accumulation of dust in the pads,
causes a minor problem which needs to be solved.
Due to the air wetness, the life time of the inlet filters
in the five gas turbines of type PG6581, for which the
cooler is placed before the air filters, is expected to
be shorter than previously. However, the cost is
neglegible compared with the power gain.
8. Revenues and Pay-Back Period
The revenues from installing the system come from
two sources: (a) the additional generated power and
(b) the reduced fuel consumption due to improved
heat rate. From Table 2, the system gave a total
power increase of 32.5 MW. NEC sells electricity at a

Fuel
consumptio
n
kg/s
2.4
2.4
2.3
2.2
2.36
2.49
2.4
2.67

Efficienc
y
%

Heat rate
kJ/kWhr

31
31
31
31
29.4
28.5
29
29

11463.0
11463.3
11422.3
11562.2
12244.0
12636.4
12412.4
12388.5

rate of 0.1 SG/kWh for residential consumers and at


a rate of 0.26 SG/kWh for industry. Assuming fullcapacity operation at an average rate of 0.23
SG/kWh (0.072 Euro/kWh), the additional megawatts
give NEC 7475 SG (2336 Euro) per hour of
operation. From this revenue alone, the system
could pay back its initial cost of 1,310,000 Euro in
561 hours, or 24 days of full-capacity operation.
By reducing the heat rate, the system enabled
the gas turbines to generate electricity with less fuel
consumption. The figures on Table 3 show that the
total fuel consumption of each gas turbine increased,
but the consumption per MWh actually decreased.
For example, Table 3 shows that before installing the
system, GT1 consumed 2.2 kg/s to generate 30 MW.
After installing the system, GT1 consumed 2.4 kg/s,
but generated 34 MW. The turbine's hourly fuel
consumption after installing the system was
2.43600, or 8640 kg of fuel. To generate 34 MWh
at the previous rate of fuel consumption, the turbine
would have required (34/30)2.23600, or 8976 kg
of fuel. Therefore, the system saved 336 kg of fuel
per each MWh of generation.
Therefore, the total fuel saving for the eight gas
turbines at full capacity was 3780 kg/h. Taking the
cost of fuel as 0.375 Euro/kg, this means that NEC
could save 1417 Euro per hour of operation. It
should be noted that the revenue due to fuel saving
was less than that from the increased megawatts.
Assuming full-load operation of all units, the total
revenue per hour of operation was 3753 Euro per

hour. Therefore, the system paid back its initial cost


in 1,310,000/3753 hours, or 350 hours of fullcapacity operation. Taking a typical capacity factor of
0.62, the pay-back period of the system was
350/0.62 hours, or 24 days. However, this estimation
ignores the increase in operational costs due to
manpower and other costs. The cost of service water
production is one Euro per cubic meter, or 0.001
Euro/kg, which is neglegable compared to fuel cost.
9. Conclusions
The wetted-media system for the gas turbine inlet-air
cooling gave Garri power plant an additional
generation capacity of 32.5 MW, which paid-back for
the systems installation costs in less than a month.
The systems also improved the operational flexibility
of the power plant. The initial cost of the system of
1,360,000 Euro should be compared with the
13,000,000 Euro that a new gas turbine of the same
capacity costs. All the installation steps took about
seven months till commissioning, which should be
compared with the 2-3 years needed to install a new
gas turbine plant.
In spite of the considerble increase in
generation capacity, there is still 50 MW difference
between the actual and the ISO conditions
generation capacity, which means that more power
can be produced by the same gas turbines,
particularly in summer time. The success of the
adopted inlet-air cooling system proves to NEC the
need to consider other power augmentation methods
for their turbines, such as water injection, steaminjection, or fog-cooling. For this purpose, the
availability of water and the dryness of the ambient
air are natural resouces that can be utilized.
Acknowledgements
The first author would like to express his greatest
gratitude to the NEC for financial support, as well as
making available the data reported in the paper. The

second author is indebted to the Ministry of Higher


Education and Research for supporting his research
activities related to this paper. Gratitude is also due
to all the engineers and staff of Garri power station
who directly or indirectly contributed to the
preparation of the paper.
References
[1]. National Electricity Corporation, the Past and
Present Book, NEC publication, July 2008.
[2]. Munters
http://www.munters.us/en/us/
29/10/2008).

Corporation,
(accessed

[3]. Boyce, M.P. (1999). A seminar held at Tenaga


Nasional Research & Development Centre
(TNRD), Malaysia.
[4]. M.M El-Awad, M.H. Onsa, and S.A. Abdalla, A
computer procedure for gas turbine power
augmentation by fog cooling. Sudanese
Engineering Society Journal (SESJ), Volume 53,
No. 48, January 2007, 15-23.
[5]. Garri power station Design data.
[6]. www.bbc.uk/print/weather/world/city_guides/resu
lts.shtml?tt=TT000640 (accessed 29/10/2008).
[7]. US
embassy
in
Sudan.
Internet:
[http://sudan.usembassy.gov/geography_and_cli
mate.html]
[8]. Jolly S. et al, Inlet air cooling for a Frame 7EA
based combined cycle power plant. Internet:
http://www.caldwellenergy.com/pdfs/INLETA.PD
F (29/3/2009).
[9]. Power Engineering, Four ways turbine operators
boost output with inlet cooling, internet:
http://pepi.pennnet.com/Articles/ (29/3/2009).
[10]. Air Process Systems, website www.airprocess.com/inlet_fogging.htm, 29/10/2008.

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