ABSTRACT

Dow Stade process energy (power and steam) is supplied by a gas turbine driven power plant with five gas turbines and six steam turbines with four auxiliary package boilers. Due to increasing natural gas prices and improvements in the process plant there has been an inbalance in the supply and demand of energy and high utility costs. The scales have been brought back balance by replacing three of the heavy duty FIAT-TG20AA gas turbines with three IM-5000 gas turbines (aircraft derivatives). Hydrogen supplied by the process plants is also burnt in the gas turbines instead of burning in the boilers. Now, after 100,000 operating hours at Dow, the utmost high thermal efficiency has been maintained over the years, the enrergy savings have been higher than predicted but achieved work availability has been lower than the targeted 95 %.