Tag: General Electric

A Hybrid Power Plant Takes Shape in Turkey

By MATTHEW L. WALD

The design for a hybrid electric plant that makes steam from natural gas and from solar power, supplemented by wind machines.General ElectricA hybrid electric plant designed by General Electric. Mirrors focus sunlight on power towers, top right, that make steam that is injected through pipes into a turbine,center, to make electricity. Wind turbines, rear, make electricity to either help run the plant or to feed the grid.

General ElectricA hybrid electric plant designed by General Electric. Mirrors focus sunlight on power towers, top right, that make steam that is injected through pipes into a turbine,center, to make electricity. Wind turbines, rear, make electricity to either help run the plant or to feed the grid.

Green: Business

How can the electric system take intermittent energy sources like wind and sun and integrate them with conventional fuels for electricity, like natural gas?

General Electric and a small California company called eSolar announced a new strategy on Tuesday: use the solar power to make steam that will supplement the steam from the natural gas. And tack on some wind machines nearby, in an arrangement that lets the natural gas compensate for variations in the wind and sun.

The technology turns a natural gas plant and a solar plant into conjoined twins; wind is more like a half-sibling.

The two companies said they would break ground this year on a hybrid electric plant in Karaman, Turkey, to be owned by a Turkish project developer called MetCap Energy Investments. Part of it will look like a conventional combined-cycle gas plant, in which the natural gas is burned in a jet engine that drives a generator, and the exhaust gases are used to make steam to turn a steam turbine that also drives a generator.

But standing nearby is a 250-foot tower surrounded by about 25,000 mirrors, each about the size of a big flat-screen television. Computers keep the mirrors focused on the tower, and inside the tower, water is boiled into steam. The steam flows into the turbine along with steam from the natural gas plant.

In broad outline, using the sun to boil water into steam and supplementing that with natural gas is not new. But most such projects use parabolic troughs with black pipes running down the center. The tower design allows steam to be heated to temperatures 200 degrees higher than the troughs, which means that the system will produce far more electricity per acre.

The design is rather modest on the renewables side; the plan is for 450 megawatts of natural gas, 50 megawatts of solar power and 22 megawatts of wind power. But Turkey grants a subsidy equal to 10 euro cents a kilowatt-hour for renewable power, said Paul Browning, president and chief executive of the thermal products division of GE Energy.

“There are some savings from the control system, the switch yard, some of the interconnections,”’ Mr. Browning added. G.E. is boasting that the plant will be 69 percent efficient, a phenomenally high number. Most natural gas plants have an efficiency ranging from 30 to 50 percent.

GE calculates the figure by counting the sun and wind at zero, as a kind of hamburger helper for the natural gas. The calculation ignores the wind and sun that does not get converted to electricity, but on the other hand, the wind and sun are inexhaustible.

The design is based on a new model of G.E. natural gas plant called FlexEfficiency that is able to vary its output rapidly to make it a good dance partner for variable sources like wind and sun.

Mr. Browning said a customer that was considering supplementing natural gas with solar power would have to weigh the cost of gas, the cost of capital and the available incentives. “Gas in the U.S. is very cheap right now, and the renewable incentives in the U.S. are — let’s call them inconsistent and difficult to project into future,” he said. The price of natural gas in Turkey is more than double the price in the United Sates, he said.

The Turkish plant will be in commercial operation by 2015, he said. Future plants could have a higher proportion of solar energy, depending on market conditions, he said.

The California company eSolar operates two power towers on the edge of the Mojave Desert. Last year it received an $11 million grant from the Energy Department to work on the design of a system that would heat molten salt rather than water. The salt stores heat that can be turned into electricity during periods of clouds or darkness, said John Van Scoter, the company’s chief executive and president.

At the Turkish plant, there is no need for storage; the solar part will run when there is sunshine, and be replaced by gas when there is no sun.

via A Hybrid Power Plant Takes Shape in Turkey – NYTimes.com.

June 8, 2011
U.S. Navy Mixes Business and Politics in Istanbul

U.S. Navy Mixes Business and Politics in Istanbul

May 16, 2011 – 6:17pm, by Joshua Kucera

A U.S.. naval ship, the USS Mahan, visited Istanbul last week for a short port visit. These sorts of things happen all the time and aren’t usually noteworthy. But the blog Bosphorus Naval News paid close attention to this visit, and noted that the visit may have been driven by commercial, rather than merely friendly, motivations. The destroyer’s visit happened to take place during a big defense exposition, IDEF, and the U.S. ambassador’s comments at the expo used the ship as a showpiece for U.S. defense industry:

I join Commander Mondlak and his crew in inviting you to tour the proud USS Mahan. This fine example of American high technology and advanced engineering, and is itself the result of partnerships between numerous American companies, including Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, McDonnell Douglas, General Electric, Alliant, Gould, and Sikorsky, many of whom are represented at IDEF.

In particular, the Mahan has a sort of radar that is under consideration for the next generation of Turkish ships. And U.S. defense contractor Lockheed Martin had just signed a deal with Turkish manufacturer Havelsan involving production of those radars.

The signed contract of course raises the question whether the next generation of Turkish warships will have SPY radars and components of AEGIS systems on board.

The blog, in a separate post, takes issue with that deal given that Turkey also manufactures naval radars:

One of the contracts signed during the fair was between Havelsan and Lockheed Martin for the integration of SPY phased radar systems to the CMS made by Havelsan. The SPY radars are the backbone of the US Navy’s AEGIS air and anti ballistic missile defence system.

Well this question must be asked: On one hand there is a local electronics power house like ASELSAN that is trying to develop naval radar systems on the other hand you sign a deal with a US company about the most important and significant air defence radar systems. How will this deal effect the local development and why it was necessary.

And from an American perspective, one might ask: how often are these sorts of port calls made for commercial reasons? Did Lockheed reimburse the U.S. Navy for the expenses it incurred on this sales visit?

via U.S. Navy Mixes Business and Politics in Istanbul | EurasiaNet.org.

May 17, 2011
General Electric May Revive Plans for Wind Turbine Production in Turkey – Bloomberg

General Electric Co., which aims to to expand its Turkish energy business as the state sells power assets, may revive a plan developed before the 2008 credit crisis to build wind turbines in the country.

Local unit General Elektrik Ticaret & Servis AS may start manufacturing turbines and so-called nacelle casings, with half the output likely to be sold within Turkey as the government targets a 20-fold increase in wind capacity by 2020, said Mete Maltepe, head of GE’s local energy unit.

Turkish companies have been going overseas to buy wind- generation equipment because they relied on export insurers such as Euler Hermes SA, the world’s largest insurer of trade credit, when financing was scarce. Generators will be more likely to buy domestically as the global recovery takes hold and more loan facilities become available, Maltepe said.

“If the number of companies that need financing through export insurers such as Hermes falls, and we do expect it to change, then we may dust off plans to make the equipment in Turkey,” he said. “We are ready for that.”

GE will expand its energy business in Turkey and keep overall investment in the nation the same even after the sale of a stake in the country’s second largest bank, Kursat Ozkan, head of GE’s Turkish operations, said Oct. 1.

GE agreed to sell 18.6 percent of Turkiye Garanti Bankasi AS to Spain’s Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA for $3.78 billion as part of a global effort to reduce financial assets, The Fairfield, Connecticut-based company said Nov. 2.

Government Target

GE wants to generate “significant” business as Turkey increases wind power capacity to 20,000 megawatts by 2020 from less than 1,000 megawatts now, Maltepe said. Currently GE gets turbine wings and poles from Turkish producers.

GE has provided about 8,000 megawatts, or 17 percent, of Turkey’s power capacity, mainly with gas and steam turbines and some wind turbines, Maltepe said. GE turbines account for about 30 percent of total generation, he said.

A planned government incentive of 5.5 euro cents a kilowatt-hour to wind power producers needs to be increased to at least 7.5 cents to justify investments, he said. The subsidy is awaiting parliamentary approval.

The draft guarantees a price of 5.5 euro cents per kilowatt-hour for wind and hydroelectric power and 10 cents for solar energy, Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said in Ankara. Companies are already investing in wind power at those levels and they’re “investable figures,” he said.

Wind turbine prices, which fell during the global economic crisis, have steadied and will start rising unless other, less costly sources of renewable energy are developed, Maltepe said.

Middle East

GE Energy Financial Services, a GE unit, bought half of Ankara-based Gama Enerji AS in 2007 and announced plans to invest at least $4 billion until 2015 to build 3,000 megawatts of power plants in Turkey and the Middle East. GE will invest in energy by itself or with a partner as Turkey expects to double national power capacity to 90,000 megawatts in 10 years, said Orkan, GE’s country chief.

The company will seek to tap a market for so-called smart grids that may be worth $2 billion after the government sells off electricity distribution assets, Maltepe said. The government will raise as much as $16 billion from the sale of 20 electricity grids, due to be completed by the end of this year, Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said Oct. 12.

“We don’t expect new operators of the grids to immediately start seeking smart grid systems as they will first have to deal with the existing network improvements,” Maltepe said. “We are already in talks with four or five companies on this but we expect the real interest in smart grids within two years.”

Smart grids use digital technology to optimize power use. Siemens AG and Areva SA are the main competitors in this market, Maltepe said.

GE’s energy unit may buy Turkish companies that make equipment for low- and medium-voltage transmission networks, Maltepe said. “We are looking around and in talks for this but we don’t know when the talks will conclude.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Ercan Ersoy in Istanbul eersoy@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Benedikt Kammel at bkammel@bloomberg.net.

November 11, 2010