GE is celebrating “20 years of powering progress around the world” as its LM6000 aeroderivative gas turbine that achieved more than 26 million operating hours. The technology of the LM6000 is based on GE’s CF6-80C2 aircraft engine; and GE said it has shipped more than 1,000 LM6000 units to customers globally, gaining “four times more experience than all other competing gas turbines in its class combined”.
Package flexibility, diverse fuel capabilities and advanced emissions technology enable the LM6000 to serve a broad spectrum of energy users. The turbine offers 40 to more than 50 MW of power with up to 42 percent efficiency and 99 percent reliability in a flexible, compact package design for utility, industrial and oil and gas applications. With fast ramp rates, demonstrated 5-minute fast starts, cycling and load-following capability, high efficiency and modular maintenance, the LM6000 has been one of the top selling gas turbines in its class for the last 10 years.
Since its commercial introduction, the LM6000 engine and package design has continued to increase its capacity to meet a wide range of customer needs through technology developments like 15 parts per million Dry Low NOx combustion, spray intercooling for power enhancement, fiber optic distributed controls and off-gas/liquid fuel flexibility including the world’s first sugarcane-based, ethanol-fired power plants operating today in Brazil.
GE said it introduced the latest enhancements of its proven LM6000 product line in June 2008 and September 2011, launching the FlexAero LM6000-PG with a single annual combustor and its dry low emissions equivalent, the FlexAero LM6000-PH. The enhancements include increased power and exhaust energy in the same size gas turbine, with the FlexAero LM6000-PH offering emissions control with no water usage – an annual savings of 26 million gallons of water per machine.
