The United States now has 1,800 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, the equivalent of 320 billion barrels of oil — more than Saudi Arabia’s 264 billion barrels. That eye-popping availability — coupled with the current low cost and the fact that natural gas emits less carbon than other fossil fuels — has spurred many power generators to consider switching from other fuels to gas. To meet that need, GE Energy today unveiled its upgraded gas turbine, known as the Frame 7FA, which emits less CO2 — and can save operators more than $2.1 million per year in fuel costs versus the earlier model.

GE Energy has gathered product improvements from across the company’s portfolio of turbine technologies to deliver this next generation gas turbine technology – which is made in GE’s Greenville, South Carolina plant and is part of GE’s ecomagination portfolio
Reimagining a classic: GE Energy gathered product improvements from across the company’s portfolio of turbine technologies for the new 7FA – which is made in GE’s Greenville, South Carolina plant and is part of GE’s ecomagination portfolio.

In the audio clip below, GE’s Russ Martin explains the advancements.

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GE’s F-Technology gas turbines are the industry’s largest, most experienced fleet of advanced technology gas turbines. Since they were first introduced, GE has shipped more than 1,000 units and the fleet has logged over 30 million hours operating experience. The improvements made to the newest model drew on feedback from power plant customers, who wanted to reduce their total cost of ownership and their environmental impact.

For example, a typical power plant operating two new 7FA gas turbines with a single steam turbine — using what’s known as a “combined cycle configuration” — would save more than $2.1 million per year at a natural gas price of $6 per million British thermal units when compared to an earlier version of the 7FA. This updated plant would also avoid the emission of more than 19,000 metric tons of CO2 per year compared to the earlier version — an improvement equivalent to the CO2 emissions of approximately 3,800 cars on US roads.

Combined cycle power plants typically feature a gas turbine that generates electricity using natural gas as a fuel, as well as a steam turbine that generates electricity using the waste heat from the gas turbine as its fuel. This configuration is very efficient, since it re-uses exhaust heat that would otherwise simply be released into the air. In the process, a gas turbine compresses air and mixes it with fuel. The fuel is then burned and the hot air-fuel mixture is expanded through turbine blades, making them spin. The spinning turbine drives a generator which converts the spinning energy into electricity.

Some of the first new 7FA turbines are planned for the proposed Oakley Generating Station in Oakley, California, which is projected to generate 586 megawatts of power. Key regions for the upgraded, 7FA — which will begin shipping in early 2012 — will include North America, Latin America, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea.

* Read today’s announcement
* Read “GE advanced gas turbine cuts fuel use, emissions” from Reuters
* Watch videos explaining how the &FA works
* See other ecomagination products.
* Read “GE’s US turbines head to Kuwait in $2.65B power deal”
* Read “From Greenville to Bahrain: GE turbines in $500M deal” on GE Reports
* Lean more about our gas turbine technology
* Read “GE to supply $1B of gas turbines to Saudi Arabia”
* Read “Iraq awards GE $3 billion gas turbine contract”
* Watch a video about turbines being made in our Greenville, SC plant