Field Test of a 1.5 MW Industrial Gas Turbine With a Low Emissions Catalytic Combustion System

Combustor hardware employing catalytic combustion technology has been developed for a 1.5 MW gas turbine. This system, combined with state of the art catalyst technology, was used to demonstrate ultra-low emissions on the engine. The demonstrator combustor utilizes a two stage lean premix preburner system to obtain the required catalyst inlet temperatures and low NOx over the operating load range. The performance of the preburner system was characterized during engine tests by measuring temperature rise and emissions just downstream of the preburner. A fuel schedule for the primary and secondary stages was selected to give NOx emissions below 2 ppmv at the engine exhaust. Overall engine performance was measured over the full load range. Emissions of NOx < 3 ppmv and CO and UHC < 5 ppmv were obtained at 72% to 100% load. Combustor dynamics were shown to be less than 0.3 psi(rms). This combustor operated for 1000 hours on a dynamometer test facility and showed low emissions performance over this period.