Operational Improvements for Start-Up Time Reduction in Solar Steam Turbines

Summary, in English

Solar steam turbines are subject to high thermal stresses as a result of temperature gradients during transient operation, which occurs more frequently due to the variability of the solar resource. In order to increase the flexibility of the turbines while preserving lifing requirements, several operational modifications for maintaining turbine temperatures during offline periods are proposed and investigated. The modifications were implemented in a dynamic thermal turbine model and the potential improvements were quantified. The modifications studied included: increasing the gland steam pressure injected to the end-seals, increasing the back pressure and increasing the barring speed. These last two take advantage of the ventilation and friction work. The effects of the modifications were studied both individually as well as in different combinations. The temperatures obtained when applying the combined modifications were compared to regular turbine cool-down temperatures and showed significant improvements on the start-up times of the turbine.

• Author: Monika Topel; Magnus Genrup; Markus Jocker; James Spelling; Bjorn Laumert
• Department/s: Thermal Power Engineering
• Publishing year: 2014
• Language: English
• Pages: 05-20
• Publication/Series: Proceedings of the ASME Turbo Expo: Turbine Technical Conference And Exposition, 2014, Vol 5C
• Links: http://dx.doi.org/10.1115/GT2014-27065
• Document type: Conference paper
• Publisher: Amer. Soc. Mechanical Engineers
• Topic: Energy Engineering
• Conference name: ASME Turbo Expo: Turbine Technical Conference and Exposition
• Conference date: 2014-06-16 - 2014-06-20
• Status: Published