The Development of a Small High Speed Steam Microturbine Generator System

The efficient use of energy is paramount in every kind of business today. Steam is a widely used energy source. In many situations steam is generated at high pressures and then reduced in pressure through control valves before reaching point of use. An opportunity was identified to convert some of t...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IOP conference series. Materials Science and Engineering 2015-01, Vol.90 (1), p.12062
Main Authors: Alford, Adrian, Nichol, Philip, Frisby, Ben
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Alternators
Commercial energy
Durability
Electric power grids
Electricity distribution
Energy consumption
Erosion rate
Fatigue tests
Generators
High speed
Impellers
Markets
Materials selection
Pressure reduction
Steam electric power generation
Steam turbines
Thrust control
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Summary:The efficient use of energy is paramount in every kind of business today. Steam is a widely used energy source. In many situations steam is generated at high pressures and then reduced in pressure through control valves before reaching point of use. An opportunity was identified to convert some of the energy at the point of pressure reduction into electricity. This can be accomplished using steam turbines driving alternators on large scale systems. To take advantage of a market identified for small scale systems, a microturbine generator was designed based on a small high speed turbo machine. This gave rise to a number of challenges which are described with the solutions adopted. The challenges included aerodynamic design of high efficiency impellers, sealing of a high speed shaft, thrust control and material selection to avoid steam erosion. The machine was packaged with a sophisticated control system to allow connection to the electricity grid. Some of the challenges in packaging the machine are also described. The Spirax Sarco TurboPower has now concluded performance and initial endurance tests which are described with a summary of the results.
ISSN:1757-8981
1757-899X
1757-899X
DOI:10.1088/1757-899X/90/1/012062