basic knowledge related to our business
If Medium Size industries with load ranging 1MW to 15MW average, do not get the power from utility Grid and generate power through their own Generators as primary source of power for its plant, then this kind of Power Generation is termed as Self Generation / Captive Power Generation.
Normally Natural Gas Generators with capacity from 1MW to 4MW are commonly used, there are Gas turbines are also available staring from 4MW to 10MW or above for medium size industries, Diesel Generators are also available but they are only used as emergency standby application as Diesel is very expensive compare to natural Gas.
Every plant has Diesel Generators available to provide back up in case of emergency, If primary power source is utility Grid or Gas Generator, Diesel Generator will ensure that the most essential load would be catered in case of complete black out.
- Utility Grid supply may interrupt because of Technical fault or natural disaster/accident.
- While Gas Generators may trip because of any fault or unavailability of Gas Fuel.
In some cases, one industry generates power more than its own use, In that case, it would sell the power to nearby industrial units or Utility Grid, in this case, the power plant can be termed as Micro Grid.
No! They are different. The Turbine normally starts at 5MW and can go up to 200MW.
They are used for large scale power production and mostly used by IPPs who sell power to Utility companies.
Since industries require power for continuous production with minimum expense to ensure profitability, therefore, they need.
- Capacity to handle sudden changes in load.
- Minimum Gas consumption to generate same amount of power.
- Reliability and availability
- Capability to handle special type of load
Yes! Normally in Oil & Gas industries, with harsh ambient conditions, the customer prefers its engine to remain available and can run on low quality of Gas too whereas he can be ready to comprise on efficiency.
A linear load is the one that takes current proportionally to the voltage applied while non-linear will take the non-proportional current when the voltage is varied.
Lights, synchronous motors, electromagnetic devices, resistors, heaters, etc.
Rectifiers, Variable Frequency drives, Uninterruptible Power Supplies, Battery charges, fluorescent bulbs, etc.
Generators which function as the main source of power and are designed to operate continuously at a constant load for an unlimited number of hours with maintenance intervals as per manufacturer recommendation.
Generators which function as the main source of power and are designed to operate continuously at a variable load for an unlimited number of hours with maintenance intervals as per manufacturer recommendation.
The major difference between the two is that continuous Power generator sets are designed to operate with a consistent load while Prime generators are designed to operate at variable load.
Generators which function as back up source of power, they are designed to operate for a limited number of hours with maintenance interval as per manufacturer recommendation.
They operate in an emergency when the main source of power is not available for any reason.
The customer brings the Grid Power supply in parallel to Generators and all those variations are catered by Grid Power.
This can be done by efficient Power Generation Control System, where Grid Supply, Gas Generation, Diesel Generation, and now Solar Power are used in most optimum combinations where operation cost, maintenance cost, and reliability of the system is ensured.
- When it is less expensive compare to the self-power Generation.
- When a certain kind of non-linear load or heavy torque load cannot be catered by Generators.
- Also used as backup power when prime power Gas Generation is not available.
If the customer has only one Generator sufficient for its entire load than it will run stand-alone to serve the load, the technical term used for this application is Island Mode.
If the customer has two different brands of Gas Generators, they should be able to share the load according to their capacity.
Example – 2MW & 1MW generators should take up to 1.66MW & 0.83MW load respectively out of a total load requirement of 2.5MW.
The technical term used for this application is Load Sharing.
If 2MW is brand new and the 1MW Generator is Old, the customer wants to utilize maximum power Generation from 2MW Generator as it consumes less Gas giving the same power compared to the 1MW engine.
Thus, out of the 2.5MW load requirement, brand new will serve 2MW while the old one would cater 0.5MW
By using this feature, customer can run minimum number of Generators to save fuel & maintenance cost, however it is necessary that all generators should be available on common BUS to utilize this feature.
If there are 2MW, 2MW & 1MW generators installed and the load requirement is 2.8MW…
Then one 2MW generator should remain OFF, while if the load requirement is 3.5MW then a 1MW generator should remain on standby.
The operation or activity of two or more things at the same time or rate. In our case:
Synchronization is the process of matching the speed and frequency of one generator to another Generator or Utility Grid, so that they can run parallel on same BUS and share the load.
Using synchronization, multiple sources of power can be connected in parallel and they can be used to serve load with various combinations.
If the load is running on grid supply and due to any kind of interruption the control system automatically starts gas generators and parallely runs them with grid supply, the technical term used for this application is Forward Synchronization.
If the system is running on Gas generators and again, due to any interruption, the control system automatically close the Grid breaker to run both Gas Generators & Grid supply run in parallel, the technical term for this application is Backward Synchronization.