Chinese Turbines

[Peckett]

Hi all,

We are looking at chinese turbines as an option for a geothermal development. Small machines, around the 5MW mark.

Does anyone have any experience with chinese geothermal turbines? They mostly look like industrial or power steam turbines without much enhancement for geothermal fluids.

Appreciate any thoughts or ideas.

Cheers

 

[ilan7]

Geothermal steam are not like regular industreal steam. They usully have gases flowing with them, chemicals and other stuff mother earth is contribute to the mixture.
Before attending to direct the steam into the turbine you have to check:
1. How much of NCG (None Condensible Gases) there are? (if too much – you will have to invest all the energy in vacuuming the condenser)
2. Is the turbine construction and material suite to the exact type of geothermal steam you got at the particular site.
3. You better buy Geothermal turbine from those how have done it before and not just a comercial turbine hope it will work on the geothermal.
Check for Geothermal turbines from Fuje, Mitsubishi, GE (Nova-Finuni), Ormat, Ansaldo, Kalina (Russia), ABB, those are the names I remember from the top of my had.

 

[EdStainless]

Are you planing on using these with direct geo steam or a secondary working fluid (butane)?
Be careful about the pressure ratios and absolute pressures. Many geo applications either run backpressure or with some other limitations.
These turbines are likely what was being built in Russia 40 years ago. The Japanese machines are more expensive but they have modern enhancements and will be superior in the long run.

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Plymouth Tube

 

[Peckett]

Hi,

Thanks for your responses, they are appreciated. I agree with your posts, and will consider these issues when looking at the chinese turbines. We are at an early stage of project development, and so have only concepts on how we would use these turbines. Our intention at this stage is to use geothermal steam directly on the turbines, and add gas removal systems to deal with NCG's.

The turbine supplier has a couple of turbines installed on a geothermal project, and these have run well.

We'll keep looking, thanks for your comments.