The first of three Siemens' H-Class
gas turbines has been
successfully started at Florida
Power & Light Company's (FPL) Cape
Canaveral Next Generation Clean
Energy Center in Port St. John, Fla.,
USA, near NASA's Kennedy Space
Center. This successful start was
enabled by the Siemens full-power
output testing program designed to put
the turbine through many operating
regimes.
FPL, a subsidiary of U.S.-based
NextEra Energy, Inc., serves the third
most customers of any American
electric utility, with approximately 4.6
million accounts, and is known for its
reliable service, clean emissions profile
and comparatively low rates. When
FPL's state-of-the-art Cape Canaveral
Clean Energy Center enters operation in
2013, it will use Siemens' highly
efficient and flexible gas turbines to
generate power with 33 percent less fuel
per megawatt-hour than the site's
previous plant. Because of this fuel
efficiency, FPL expects that the new
plant will more than pay for itself with
fuel savings for customers estimated at
more than $1 billion over its 30-year
operational life.
Three more units of the model SGT6-
8000H gas turbine will also be installed
at a similar new plant under
construction in Riviera Beach, Fla.,
USA. That project, FPL's Riviera Beach
Next Generation Clean Energy Center,
is scheduled to enter operation in 2014.
The SGT6-8000H is the scaled 60-Hz
version of Siemens' successful SGT5-
8000H gas turbine, which made power
plant history in May 2011. Installed in a
combined-cycle power plant
configuration at Irsching Power Station
in Bavaria, Germany, the SGT5-8000H
achieved world-record efficiency of
60.75 percent. The SGT6-8000H is
designed to 274 MW output of electric
power, and is likewise capable of
reaching efficiencies topping 60 percent
in combined-cycle operation, which
FPL's Cape Canaveral and Riviera Beach
plants will employ.
“Clean and efficient power
generation is one of the most important
milestones on the road to a new, more
sustainable age of electricity. The HClass
is a landmark in engineering and
energy efficiency. Since its initial
startup at the Irsching Power Station in
Germany, this new machine has run
extremely successfully for more than
18,000 operating hours,” said Roland
Fischer, CEO of Fossil Power Generation
Division of Siemens Energy.