Abstract
The typical combined heat and power plants requires the introduction of additional heating medium. The alternative solution is the direct integration of the exhaust gases from heat engine. High temperature, surplus oxygen and low water content of the Gas Turbines exhaust gases enabled the successful integration at industrial scale as: preheated combustion air for industrial furnaces, heat source for drying and for absorption chillers. The article comprises the reference list for direct exhaust gas integration of GTs produced by Baker Hughes formerly GE), the processes overview, GTs selection criteria, as well as the review of documented GTs applications in process industry focusing on technical and economic considerations.
Majority of referenced applications for industrial furnace are in the steam methane reformers used in fertilizer industry, as well as steam crackers in petrochemical industries. Several GTs were integrated with crude oil furnace in refinery. Direct drying utilizing exhaust gas from GT, is commonly applied in ceramic, wood derivative, pulp & paper and inorganic chemicals industries. Integrating GTs with absorption chillers was introduced to serve the district heating and cooling system.
The described solutions allowed to reduce specific energy consumption by 7–20% or the costs of energy consumption associated with large volume production by 15–30%. The reduction of specific energy consumption allows to decrease the amount of CO2 emitted. The overall efficiency of cogeneration plant above 90% was achieved.
