Lahore (Muhammad Yasir) “As one of the world’s largest manufacturers and suppliers of gas turbine technology, GE is committed to developing the best aeroderivative turbine solutions, which are uniquely positioned to provide the flexible power generation our customers need in such a complex and dynamic environment”.
These thoughts were expressed by Martin O’Neill, general manager of Aeroderivative Gas Turbine Services for GE’s Power Services business. “Consequently, it is critical that we continue to inject new investments to create services solutions for greater flexibility, reliability and performanceand make these solutionsavailable to power producers and industrial operators with non-GEequipment”, he added.
GE Power’s white paper titled “Reimagining Our Electricity Future” mentions that decentralization, digitization and decarbonization continue to drive dynamic change across the global energy industry. Renewable sources of power have grown at double-digit rates for more than a decade and will likely continue to do so.
Given the unique and growing needs for flexibility to balance the grid, GE Power sees significant opportunity for its Aeroderivative business and announced that it is investing more than $200million in the business over the next three years across new product introductions and services capabilities. This commitmentis focused on its Houston Service Center and on broadeningits Cross-Fleet solutions to repower other original equipment manufacturers’ (OEM) aeroderivative and heavy-duty gasturbines.
According to a 2016 study by Technavio, the global aeroderivative gas turbine industry is expected to grow at an annual rate of nearly 5 percent between 2016 and 2020, and aeroderivative turbinesare likely to become the go-to technology to provide balancing services for renewable energy. These mounting power imbalances are increasingly forcing conventional generators to operate in a more flexible manner, ramping more frequently to balance intermittent renewables and provide grid-firming services. Given this crucial role in power infrastructure, downtime can be expensive, and it’s critically important that operators have plans in place to ensure continued operations and minimal lost time for maintenance and repairs.
