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USC Steam Turbine Technology
USC Steam Turbine Technology
Abstract
State of the art ultra supercritical (USC) steam parameters provide highest efficiencies (i.e.
lowest fuel costs and emissions like CO2) for coal fired steam power plants. At the same time
these plants also face the requirements of deregulated electricity markets with an increasing
portion of renewable energy. Thus the units have to be capable of flexible load operation and
frequency support. The overload admission has proven to be very effective for flexible
turbine operation at an excellent heat rate. Both main turbine components and controls have
been optimized to minimize thermal stresses, leading to an improved start-up performance.
Despite increased steam parameters and number of load cycles and starts maintenance
intervals have not been shortened. As a result overall life cycle costs are minimized.
Siemens has more than 10 years of experience with USC steam turbines and continues to
optimize associated designs and technologies.
This paper presents the current Siemens steam turbine technology and products for USC
applications and references for operating units.
Introduction
According to common forecasts, the worldwide demand for power will increase significantly
over the next two decades, and the current power plant capacity will need to double by the
year 2030. A considerable share of this huge increase in demand has to be covered by coalfired units. To save primary energy resources i.e. to reduce fuel consumption, and to reduce
emissions, maximum power plant efficiency is a crucial parameter for power plants.
Therefore steam parameters will have to be maximized to an economically reasonable extent.
State of the art temperatures and pressures for ultra supercritical (USC) applications are
600C at 270 bar for the main steam and 610C at 60 bar for the reheat steam.
Furthermore, the share of renewable capacities will increase further to fulfill global emission
reduction targets. As a result electric grids will face a growing share of volatile capacities.
This again requires additional flexibility of the conventional units and, in addition to
combined cycle units, coal-fired units will also operate in the mid merit market. Thus these
units will experience an increased number of starts and load changes, including rapid load
changes, especially within small electric grids.
Siemens USC steam turbines
50 Hz full speed tandem compound turbo-sets for USC steam power plants (SPP) are
available for gross power outputs from 600 1200 MW per unit.
The steam turbine set-up for ultra-supercritical applications depends on the unit rating, the
number of reheats selected, and the site backpressure characteristics. A typical turbo-set
comprises three separate turbine modules operating at different pressure and temperature
levels. These modules are the high pressure turbine (HP), intermediate pressure turbine (IP)
and, depending on the cooling water conditions, one, two or three low pressure turbines (LP).
The generator is directly coupled to the last LP turbine. Figure 1 shows an SST-6000 series
Siemens steam turbine with two LP turbines. A comprehensive description of the specific
turbine features of the whole turbo-set is given in [1].
HP turbine
IP turbine
LP turbines
electrical output, European customers consider 800 MW an optimum unit size. This is
basically due to maximum dimension of the air pre-heater for a one-line configuration of the
pre-heater piping. But increasing power output also reduces operational flexibility because
wall thicknesses of components determine start-up times and permissible number and rate of
load cycles. [4]
Plant
Country
Power output
Main steam
Reheat Commercial
steam
operation
Isogo
Japan
1 x 600 MW
610C
2001
Yuhuan
China
4 x 1000 MW
600C
2007
2 x 1000 MW
600C
2009
Westfalen
Germany
2 x 800 MW
610C
2011
Eemshafen
Netherlands
2 x 800 MW
610C
2012
Lnen
Germany
1 x 800 MW
610C
2012
Mainz
Germany
1 x 800 MW
610C
2013
manufacturing procedures. However materials for cast and forged parts exposed to USC
operating parameters have been upgraded and coatings have been added.
Further investigations concern the oxidation and scaling behavior of materials used in real
operation. The knowledge gained here was especially valuable and relevant for the antifriction property of seal rings and sliding pads. Guide ways, threads and moving parts in the
steam valves are partly coated. Chrome carbide coatings of valve cones, for example, show
no relevant wear or damage, which verifies the suitability of these coatings also for USC
plants. Chrome carbide coatings have been used for SIEMENS steam valves as standard
protection for approximately 10 years and are, in addition to stelliting, a proven design, see
Figure 5 IP control valve cone.
The shaft seals of a steam turbine shall seal efficiently to reduce steam losses. Furthermore,
the sealing needs to resist high temperature, and static and dynamic forces. The HP turbine at
Isogo, for example, is fully equipped with seal strips made from 13% chrome material, which
is martensitic. The inspection confirms the suitability of this material also for temperatures up
to approx. 580 C (1076 F), which dominate at the HP balancing piston entrance where the
highest load is located, see Figure 8 showing the HP thrust balancing piston.
Main
Steam
lines
HP turbine
main steam
valve
bypass
stage
control valve
main steam
Stage
bypass
chambers
Figure 9: Stage bypass routing from main steam valve combination to HP turbine and cross
sectional view of HP turbine with HP stage bypass chamber
The HP stage bypass is the most efficient solution for rapid load increase because it creates
two load conditions at which there are minimal throttling losses. The first condition occurs
when the valves of the main steam inlet are wide open and the stage bypass is closed. Usually
this is the 100% load point. The second case with minimum throttling losses is with all valves
wide open (VWO) which represents the maximum load point, usually 105%. Consequently,
bypass governing achieves a better part load performance than throttling of the valves at the
100% load point. Manufacturing this design is also more economical than building a nozzle
governed machine with similar part load characteristic.
Design of the HP stage bypass and stationary performance is described in detail in [5, 6].
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Figure 10 illustrates the transient performance of the HP stage bypass. Like throttling of the
main steam valves, the stage bypass is able to provide a most rapid load increase of about 1%
per sec. The maximum load enhancement in both cases is about 50% of the design value i.e.
with full additional firing load of the boiler.
The diagram also shows that a combination of different measures may be required to meet
challenging grid code requirements of islands e.g. UK with 10% load increase within 10 sec.
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As a traditional requirement for steam turbine start-up, the steam temperature has to be higher
than the metal temperature. This reduces thermal stresses, especially for hot starts and
restarts.
Different developments have made it more and more difficult or rather time-consuming to
meet this requirement. Firstly, increasing rated steam temperatures from 540C to 600C
enlarge the difference between metal temperature and steam temperature after short shutdown periods (<8 hrs). Then, reduced bypass sizes limit the start-up load, and heating up the
steam physically takes longer at low load because heat transfer is also low. Finally, cost
reduction measures have lead to reduced boiler performances.
Originally, thick walled boiler headers had the main influence on hot start times in steam
power plants because the headers cool down faster than the steam turbine.
With the new boiler design the hot turbine became a disadvantage for the overall plant hot
start performance.
For hot start-up after boiler ignition, the plant is kept in bypass operation without producing
power until boiler outlet temperatures meet steam turbine starting conditions (480C to
500C). For the customer this is a waste of fuel and the time to synchronization is too long
under deregulated market conditions. Shortening these waiting times increases the steam
turbine dispatch rate.
Thus the focus is on allowing cold steam to enter the steam turbine at an earliest possible
point. This enables the turbine to start while the boiler is ramping-up in load without any
additional hold.
As a result, the start-up time is shortened, which leads to an earlier dispatch of the turbine.
Savings are at least the amount of fuel energy which is not dumped into the condenser. The
new start-up method does not reduce turbine efficiency by increasing axial or radial
clearances. Life consumption for the new method is a little higher but still allows more than
6000 hot starts of the steam turbine.
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300
600
250
500
100
200
400
80
100
120
"new"
turbine
start
300
"old"
turbine
start
150
Temperature [C]
Pressure [bar]
60
200
40
Load
Turbine Speed
50
100
20
0
0
20
40
60
Time [min]
80
100
120
0
140
13
30
g
LCF
design limit
heat up
20
10
start-up 2
start-up 1
calculated
0
cool down
-10
-20
LCF
g design limit
-30
-100
-80
-60
-40
-20
[K]
20
Figure 12: Calculated and measured cooling of HP shaft during parallel start-up
Figure 12 shows results of tests carried out at a German SPP which prove the Siemens
approach to allow turbine start-up with steam temperature lower than the turbine shaft
temperature. The boiler at this SPP starts with a ramp-rate of 3% per min. For example, with
main steam 50 K below metal temperature, temperature difference for cool down is only 16
K. This is well below the design for low cycle fatigue which allows 27 K.
Conclusion
Growing worldwide power demand, limited resources for all fossil fuels, CO2 reduction
targets and growing shares of renewable energy set the scene for current and future plants.
Coal will definitely continue to be an important part of the energy mix.
Siemens contributes to these market requirements by offering USC steam turbines for highest
steam parameters i.e. maximum plant efficiency. Besides featuring minimum clearances for
maximum inner turbine efficiency, these turbines are also very flexible to operate. Both short
start-up times and quick load changes are possible. For temporary power increase the stage
bypass is the optimum solution for efficiency and dynamic performance.
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Siemens large scale USC steam turbines have been in operation for nearly 10 years now. The
design principles were proven during recent inspections at the Isogo plant in Japan where
blades, casings and rotors exposed to high steam parameters showed far less creep effects,
oxidation and abrasion than expected after 48.000 EOH.
References
[1]
Ultra-supercritical steam turbine turbosets Best efficiency solution for conventional steam
power plants, International Conference on Electrical Engineering, Kunming, China, July
2005.
[2]
Design Features and Performance Details of Brush Seals for Turbine Applications, ASME
Turbo Expo, Barcelona, 2006
[3]
Advanced HP&IP Blading Technologies for the Design of Highly Efficient Steam Turbines,
Thermal Turbine, 2004
[4]
High efficient and most flexible 800 MW Ultra Supercritical Steam Power Plants A common approach of RWE Power AG and Siemens AG, CoalGen Europe, Warsaw, 2008
[5]
Thermodynamic Aspects of Designing the new Siemens High Pressure Turbine with
Overload Valve for Supercritical Applications, ASME Power, Atlanta, 2006
[6]
Flexible Load Operation and Frequency Support for Steam Turbine Power Plants. PowerGen
Europe, Madrid, 2007
[7]
Siemens 600 - 1200 MW Steam Turbine Series for Flexible Load Operation. PowerGen
Europe, Madrid, 2007
[8]
State of the Art Steam Turbine Automation for Optimum Transient Operation Performance,
ASME Power, San Antonio, Texas, 2007
[9]
Fast Cycling Capability for New Plants and Upgrade Opportunities, PowerGen Asia,
Singapur, 2005
Copyright Siemens AG 2008. All rights reserved.
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