Advantages of gas turbine power plant
1. Warm up time: Once the turbine is brought up to rated speed by starting the motor and fuel is ignited, thegas turbine will accelerate to full load without warming up.
2. Maintenance and construction cost is less than thermal or diesel power plant.
3. Low weight to size: The weight of gas turbine per kW output is low, which is a favourable feature in all vehicles.
4. Fuel flexibility: Any hydrocarbon fuel from high octane gasoline to heavy diesel oil and pulverized coal can be used efficiently.
5. Floor space and lubrication: Because of its small size. the floor space required for its installation is less. Lubrication of component is easy
6. High efficiency: Suitable blade cooling permits use of high gas turbine inlet temperature yielding high thermal efficiency (around 30%).
7. Sturt up and shut down A ge turbine plant can be started up as well as shut down very quickly. Thus muitable for peak load demand for certain region.
8. Combined cycle mode: A gas turbine power plant can be used in conjunction with a bottoming steam plant in combined cycle mode to yield overall fuel to electricity iv) efficiency of 55%
9. The requirement of water is very less compared to an equivalent (cam) thermal power plant. so there is not any restriction in installation of gas turbine plant.
10. Ash disposal: In thermal power station ash disposal from site poses serious problem. This is not so in gas turbine power plant.
11. Transmission loss: It can be located in the load center itself. Therefore transmission loss is minimal
12. Installation cost installation cost is less compared to thermal plant. Only foundation is required. The plant comes from the factory to site, almost fully assembled.
13. Low capital cost The capital cost per considerably less than a thermal plant
Disadvantages of gas turbine power plant :
1. Part load efficiency is less.
2 Highly sensitive to component efficiency like compressor and turbine efficiency.
3. The efficiency depends upon atmospheric condition (atmospheric temperature and pressure).
4. High air rate is required to limit the maximum gas turbine inlet temperature; as a result exhaust loss is high.
5. Large compressor work is required, which tells upon efficiency of the plant
6. High quality air and gas filter required so that no dust enters causes corrosion on turbine blade.
7. Life of plant is limited.
8. Requirement of special methods and alloys for different components of the plants.
9. Special cooling methods require for cooling turbine blades.
Applications :
The major fields of application of gas turbines are:
i) Aviation
ii) Power generation
iii) Oil and gas industry
iv) Marine propulsion
