Minicogenerative solution - Ingersoll Rand MT250 Sorin Tomescu 1, 1 .

National Research and Development Institute for Gas Turbines, Bucharest, Romania Cogeneration represents simultaneous production of two or more forms of energy, using a single primary fuel. The two most usual forms of energy are mechanical and thermal energy. Mechanical energy is used usually to drive an electric generator, but there are widespread mechanical applications (pumps, compressors). Most cogeneration applications are for combined heat and power (CHP). Thermal energy can be used as hot water for house heating and other industrial process, as steam for different technological process at specific pressure and temperature, or hot gas for drying various products.
During the operation of a conventional power plant, large quantities of heat are rejected in the atmosphere with the exhausted gases. Most of this heat can be recovered and used to cover thermal needs, thus increasing the efficiency from 30-50% of a power plant to 80-90% of a cogeneration system. Based on improvement of gas turbine efficiency, on the low costs for operating and maintenance, long life cycle, reliability, more and more gas turbine cogeneration groups have been developed, and made these plants to be preferred in cogenerative processes. Lower investment costs lead to a recovery period of up to 2 4 years at a total duration of life of 15 20 years. COMOTI experience in gas turbine cogeneration consists in design, commissioning, operation, maintenance and repair of two cogeneration plants: - GTE 2000 Botosani cogeneration power plant (two cogenerative groups of 2000 kW for SC Termica SA din Botoani - combined production of electricity and hot water for urban use); - Cogeneration power plant 2xST 18 - Suplacu of Barcau (two cogenerative groups of 1800 kW with Pratt & Witney ST18 gas turbines for the combined production of electricity and superheated steam - required in oil extraction technological process); Ingersoll Rand MT250 microturbines are gas-turbine-powered, 250 kW synchronous electric generators. They are designed to be installed directly in a customers facility where the electricity and the heat the microturbines produce will be consumed. As opposed to larger gas turbines, microturbines are tightly integrated, pre-engineered packages. MT250 microturbines can be configured for grid-parallel generation, grid isolated generation, or a combination of these known as dual-mode. Models are available for 60 Hz and 50 Hz applications using a range of gaseous fuels. The microturbine package may be used for both outdoor and indoor environments.

Figure 1. Microturbine simplified power cycle schematic

In conclusion, we can say that the minicogenerative solutions are a naturally consequence of decentralized process of power production in correlation with the heat needs, in the context of new technologies for cogeneration and electricity market opening.