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GE introduced the LMS100(TM), the world's most efficient simple-cycle gas turbine, at Power-Gen International 2003. The LMS100 is the most extensive collaboration of design and manufacturing in GE's history, involving four GE business units and three other firms in its development. The Upstate's GE plant located in Greenville, South Carolina contributed to the development of this cutting-edge gas turbine. The 100-megawatt LMS100 represents the first time GE has combined actual components from GE Power Systems' heavy-duty frame gas turbines and GE Aircraft Engines' aeroderivative gas turbines to provide significant gains in gas turbine efficiency. In simple cycle, the LMS100 has an efficiency of 46 percent, which is 10 percent greater than GE's highest efficiency gas turbine today, the LM6000. In combined cycle, the efficiency is 54 percent. A key reason for the high efficiency is the use of off-engine intercooling technology within the turbine's compression section. The LMS100 is the first modern production gas turbine to employ this technology. The LMS100 has simple-cycle, combined heat and power and combined-cycle applications for power generation. It will have mechanical drive uses in the future. Characteristics not available in other 80- to 160-megawatt gas turbines include high part-power efficiency, cycling capability without increased maintenance cost, low lapse rate for hot day power, and a modular design for ease of maintenance and high availability. It can achieve full power in 10 minutes. At 50% turndown, the part-power efficiency is 40%, which is more than most turbines at full power. The LMS100 can operate in both 50- and 60-Hertz applications without a speed-reducing gearbox.
"This program is a first for GE in that not only are multiple businesses providing development expertise, but they are also designing, manufacturing, sourcing, assembling and testing the product," said GE Aircraft Engines president and CEO David Calhoun. Businesses involved with the development and production of the LMS100 are GE's Aircraft Engines (GEAE) Industrial Aeroderivative group of Evendale, Ohio; GE Power Systems (GEPS) Gas Turbine Technology group of Greenville, S.C. and GE Aero Energy of Houston, Texas; GE Industrial Systems; GE Global Research Center; Avio, S.p.A. of Torino, Italy; Volvo Aero Corp. in Trollhattan, Sweden; and Sumitomo Corporation of Japan. The LMS100 will begin development testing in May 2004. The first production units, the standard annular combustor (SAC) configuration, will be available in the second half of 2005.
About GE Power Systems Based in Atlanta, Georgia, GE Power Systems provides equipment, services and management solutions across the power generation, oil and gas, distributed power and energy rental industries. (Images provided by General Electric)
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