Power production through CHP

combined heat and power

Direct use of gas turbine flue gas for combustion – with over 96% efficiency

The idea of using excess heat from generating electricity that would otherwise be lost for process steam or hot water is not new. It could better be described as a logical step, because the hot flue gases of a block heat and power plant or gas turbine contain great quantities of valuable energy.

While the hot flue gas of a traditional combined heat and power plant (CHP) is directed immediately through a heat exchanger or waste heat boiler, in this solution just presented by SAACKE it supplies a DDZG-GT series gas turbine flue gas burner. In this way SAACKE not only opens the way to new high-temperature processes for CHP plants, but also makes production more flexible and profitable overall.

Because CHP plants can achieve efficiency of over 96%, they are not only very economical, by also environmentally friendly.
 
Germany therefore offers a higher rate of compensation for current generated by these plants. The higher rate is honored even if the current that is generated is subsequently consumed.
These plants have most commonly been implemented in the low and medium load range with block heat and power plants, which are very maintenance-intensive, however. SAACKE is therefore now offering an alternative: an extremely low-maintenance combination of micro gas turbine with proven SAACKE burners known as "micro CHPs". A gas turbine generates from 50 to 200 kW¹ of electrical current, with its flue gas used to supply a SAACKE gas turbine flue gas burner, which fires in the downstream heat generator. Depending on the layout and configuration of the heat generator, a CHP plant of this type produces heat, steam or hot water with conventional heat generators – and also produces valuable electrical energy.

With the "micro CHP" principle, SAACKE introduces a highly profitable instrument for generating electricity for conventional heat generators.

The system is based on a Capstone micro gas turbine. These proven electricity generators were originally developed for use by the US army. They combine turbine, generator and line synchronization in one compact sound-proofed housing. They are typically operated with natural gas, but are also able to use biogas, fuel oil or biogenic oils with no problems.

Because all movable parts of the electricity generator run on a single (air-cushioned) shaft, the maintenance intervals of the micro gas turbine are extremely long, with a total service life of up to 80,000 hours for the turbine. Startup takes only a few seconds. Then, depending on the size, between 50 and 200 kW¹ of line-synchronous electrical power is available. The turbine features infinitely variable operation over a very wide control range with both heat and current guided mode.

Depending on the capacity rating, the current that is generated is compensated at 5.11 cents/kWh higher than the normal rate in Germany (CHP law), even if the current is used internally. This means: the current that is generated can be fed back into the electrical network or used strictly internally. Firing systems featuring high operating hours and continuous heat consumption are naturally suited to CHP solutions. However, the turbine and burner can optionally be operated independently of each other.

Products from the proven SAACKE DDZG-GT series are used as burners. They develop firing rates between 1 and 4 MW¹  (depending on the size of the turbine) and fire directly into the downstream heat generator. In principle these robust lance burners work with practically all liquid and gaseous fuels and are even suitable for thermal utilization of problematic auxiliary substances.
The proven combination of turbine and burner always guarantees the lowest emission values, and also reliably exceeds even the strictest requirements over the entire control range.

Plants designed to generate only heat do not produce any current, even if they are optimally configured. The combination of gas turbines and SAACKE gas turbine flue gas burners is fundamentally different: it produces electricity, significantly boosting efficiency and providing a profitable and especially energy-efficient solution. Your advantage: Due to government subsidies, the amortization times of micro CHP plants are often astonishingly short and also free production from price fluctuations in the electricity market.
SAACKE offers you decades of experience in plant engineering. Our engineers can develop the optimum CHP solution for you regardless of your application or load range. The same applies to consultancy services when it comes to retrofitting existing plants.

¹ higher performance possible