Enhancing the accessibility of power through Ecomagination
Technology is ever evolving in nature, touching upon different tenets of a product to increase its usability. An ideal scenario would be a barrier-free environment with instant access to technology for all. Indeed a daunting task!
GE’s TM2500 power plants can be transported anywhere in the world
Nevertheless, innovative technologies and related design creations continue making machines more reliable, flexible, and multi-tasking. Innovators like Dario Floreano, head of the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology are taking inspiration from nature to design new drone types, which can have varied shapes and sizes, having an enhanced ‘anytime, anywhere’ accessibility feature. On the other hand, we have Amazon’s latest initiative called ‘Instant Pick-up’ – enabling Amazon shoppers to pick up orders for certain items within two minutes of making their purchase.
Today, we have ample amazing stories telling us how digital analytics and mobility are empowering us to reimagine the future.
Scale matters
The real challenge lies in embedding features like accessibility and agility into gigantic machines typically used in industrial set-ups like the power sector.
Expanding the canvas of creativity by at least million times in contrast to the product-line mentioned above, GE Power is helping people to access electricity literally ‘anytime anywhere’ in the world. GE’s distributed power offering – TM2500, an aero-derivative class of gas turbine, is giving access to instant power to millions across the globe. TM2500 power plants are already delivering power whenever and wherever GE customers need it in Egypt, Mexico, Japan, Libya, Ecuador, Algeria, Myanmar and Indonesia. By virtue of mobility in the design, these power plants can be used for multiple purposes such as relief operations post natural calamities, meeting summer peak demand, expanding base-load capacity, managing unstable grid conditions, and massive construction work, etc.
Repurposed from a jet engine – CF6, the same kind that powers Boeing 747s including Air Force One, GE’s TM2500 power plant is a technological marvel. Also known as ‘Fast Power’ or ‘Power Plant on Wheels’, this trailer mounted mobile gas turbine generator sets can be deployed more than six times faster than other technologies. The TM2500 equipment is more than just gas turbine. It’s really a group of complementary power systems that can rapidly and reliably generate and distribute power to even the most remote areas. Unlike, traditional power plants that may take up to 12 months to come online, TM2500 power plants are ready to go online within 30 days of placing the order and within 11 days of trucks arriving on the project site.
Based on the concept of Ecomagination, TM2500 has several striking advantages including lesser maintenance events and space requirements (8.5x lesser space required to produce same MW power), and lower emissions (95 per cent lower NOx, CO) and noise levels (20 db lower noise than diesel recips farms). Each unit of TM2500 can generate 25 MW – 30 MW of power using varied of fuel types, achieving 100 per cent capability in just 10 minutes of start-up. Such features could deliver significant OPEX advantages to the customers.
Right way to go
With a spurt in efforts to protect the environment and reducing emissions from power plants, the future belongs to clean energy. However, in the midst of a global tussle in terms of adherence to the climate change norms, a smart strategy would be to swiftly establish an equilibrium in the energy mix using different fuel-types. This will in-turn depend upon the nature of the power demand, and other governing factors like affordability, accessibility, reliability, and sustainability that are specific to a nation.
Developing economies like India, and upcoming markets like Sri Lanka and Bangladesh in the subcontinent having massive power requirements, hold huge potential for installing instant, reliable and compact power generation alternatives like TM2500. Such technologies, supplying essential power, can be deployed to perform miscellaneous tasks in a most economical way.
GE’s commercial intensity and unique partnering models including financing of the power projects apart from providing technological expertise can help customers in respective geographies to continue adding value to the ecosystems and powering the future.