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Figure 2 National Energy Strategy for Electricity Generation [2]

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Subcommittee on Interior and Related Agencies

Committee on Appropriations
U.S. House of Representatives
Public Witness Testimony FY'97

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, we are Rev. T. Byron Collins, S.J., and Rev. William L. George, Assistants to the President of Georgetown University. We would like to extend our sincere appreciation and gratitude for your support of the 30-Foot Fuel Cell Powered Bus Program. We are pleased to report that the promise of fuel cell technology to meet the transit industry's need for environmentally clean, fuel efficient power is now being demonstrated on the world's first liquid-fueled 30-foot fuel cell powered bus. Moreover, the 30-Foot Fuel Cell Bus is providing the technical direction and assurance to proceed with the commercialization of the fuel cell.

Currently, the Federal Transit Administration is working to develop a commercially viable 40-foot fuel cell bus using a domestic fuel cell manufacturer. The goal is to bring the fuel cell technology to a state of commercial production with the promise that the technology will serve as the pathfinder to the automotive market. The work to date provides confidence that the ambitious goals of the fuel cell bus program will be achieved and fuel cell technology will find its way into the automobile marketplace yielding great economic and environmental benefits to the nation.

1600 Wilson Blvd., Suite 901 Arlington, Virginia 22209

GTA

Gas Turbine Association

(703) 624-7616 phone (703) 812-8743 fax

Statement of the Gas Turbine Association to the United States House of Representatives, Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on Interior and Related Agencies, regarding United States Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy and the Office of Fossil Energy, Fiscal Year 1997 Appropriations.

The members of the Gas Turbine Association (GTA) appreciate the opportunity to present its views and recommendations to the United States House of Representatives, Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on the Interior and Related Agencies, regarding Fiscal Year 1997 appropriations for the Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy (EE) and Fossil Energy (FE).

GTA is dedicated to increasing the awareness of the role of gas turbines in meeting future US and global power generation needs. GTA's members include: ABB Power Generation Inc., Electric Power Research Institute, RollsRoyce Inc.-Allison Engine Company, South Carolina Research & Development Center, Siemens Power Corporation, United Technologies Corporation, and Westinghouse Electric Corporation.

The GTA regular member companies, indicated above in bold type, have US employment of over 127,000 in the industrial equipment sector and over 15,000 employees who are directly involved in non-aerospace gas turbines in the United States. This does not take into account the many thousands of supplier and affiliate jobs across the country directly linked to GTA member company industrial enterprises. GTA believes federal government support of industries investment in new technologies will further improve competitive positions of these US based operations in both the domestic and export markets, while greatly enhancing the number of US gas turbine power industry jobs.

The power generation equipment market continues to be driven by the need to provide highly efficient, environmentally friendly, and cost effective power to meet consumer demands. GTA believes that, with the continuation of federal government's R&D efforts, the US based gas turbine power generation industry will meet consumer and market needs while, at the same time, increase US employment and US exports.

While market forecasters estimate the need for 87 GW on new power generation in the US over the next decade, they predict an export market of over 300 GW available to independent power producers alone. Accelerating industrial and residential power needs in developing countries, coupled with the worldwide spread of deregulation is leading to a tremendous overseas market demand for power generation equipment. Over the next ten years, the export market is projected at $1.0 Trillion.

The success of this industry is highly dependent on sharing the development risks with the Government to arrive at a win-win strategy for the industry and the country. Industry is willing to make the commitment to commercialize the new technologies but the price-driven market requires external financial support for the lengthy and expensive development process required for new gas turbines. This support is essential for the US to maintain a worldwide leadership role in gas turbine power generation products and environmental technologies.

As such, GTA strongly supports the following initiatives:

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Continuing the Department of Energy's Advanced Turbine System (ATS) Program at original funding level's for industrial (<20MW) and utility (>150 MW) size gas turbine technology development and demonstrations

Extending the ATS technologies to mid-size (30-150 MW) gas turbines to meet intermediate power market requirement for repowering and distributed generation

Evaluating further advances in gas turbine technologies in combination with fuel cell technologies to
achieve very high efficient clean hybrid power systems

Extending gas turbine environmental technologies to ensure compatibility with new emission regulations
Expanding the alternate fuels flexibility of gas turbines to burn fuels of lower quality and waste energy

resources

ADVANCED TURBINE SYSTEMS

GTA strongly supports the continuation of the DOE ATS program at program plan funding levels. This program is important to US power generation because gas turbines provide the highest efficiencies and are the most environmentally friendly of power generation technologies today. ATS technology product introduction must be achieved by the year 2000 to meet America's power production goals.

Keeping the ATS program on track is important and is expected to result in the following benefits:

· Improving power generation efficiency by the year 2000 to meet our domestic needs, improving our energy security, reducing consumer energy costs, and increasing competition. Reducing or deleting this funding will delay these benefits substantially as development of ATS technologies is a technically complex, funding intensive, multi-year process.

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Sustaining industry's commitment to commercialize ATS since the Government's contribution to sharing technical and cost risks is essential for industry to continue their investment in development and subsequent commercialization of ATS technologies.

• Increasing the number of advanced technology engineering and manufacturing jobs in the gas turbine power generation industry and the associated supplier base in the United States.

• Keeping the US in a technology and export leadership position for advanced power generation and environmental technologies.

The ATS government/industry/university partnership is a highly cost-shared investment toward low cost, clean energy. The gas turbine industry is committed to fulfilling its obligations under the ATS Program and urges the same commitment from the government. GTA believes the failure to continue this program to completion (through the year 2000) will be detrimental to future energy sources, the environment, and the economy of our country. We strongly urge federal support for ATS.

BEYOND ATS

Electric industry restructuring and market uncertainty in the United States has largely eliminated the near-term domestic market for new generation and R&D funding by electric equipment purchasers. The resulting drop in gas turbine prices has eliminated the market incentives needed for gas turbine suppliers to fund internal development of advanced technologies or innovative applications. Given the huge amount of outdated and aging fossil and nuclear steam capacity that will need to be replaced in the 2000-2010 time frame, R&D, beyond ATS, needs to be conducted in the next 5 years to have the most economic and environmentally attractive component, system and alternative fuel options for gas turbines at the "starting" gate. Opening up overseas markets and domestic repowering applications through innovations in gas turbine fuel flexibility would provide a major national economic stimulus.

Flexible Gas Turbine System for Intermediate Load, Repowering and Distributed Power Generation

The ATS program has been quite effective at bringing together the collective efforts of industry, government and the academic community to commercialize advanced technology for very large (over 300 MW) base load combined cycles and small (less than 20 MW) industrial gas turbines that fit well in cogeneration applications. However, a need exists for mid-size (30-150 MW) units that are optimized for operation at intermediate load, say 500-5000 hours per year. The efficiency does not need to be in the 60% range of the large, base load plants, but the installed cost per kW needs to be closer to that of a simple cycle than to that of a combined cycle, and the plant needs to be capable of rapid startup to meet intermediate load demands for flexibility in the owner's operating system. These systems would meet the requirements for remote or distributed power generation capacity.

Technical approaches to meet this need are available using both frame-type and aeroderivative gas turbines as the basis for new designs. Intercooling, recuperation and moisture addition to either type of simple cycle gas turbine can produce the required performance and should be capable of being manufactured and installed at sufficiently low cost per kW to meet the users' needs.

However, immediate market uncertainties resulting from electric industry deregulation have created a large hurdle to development and commercialization of new generation technologies. Near-term investment in new generation in the United States is being deferred as a result of these uncertainties. Excess conventional gas turbine production capacity is driving prices down. Lack of demand and low prices have almost eliminated the market incentives for gas turbine suppliers to sponsor internally the large R&D investments ($100 million range) needed for innovative new products.

A DOE initiative for such a flexible, mid-sized gas turbine would address the problem in an effective way, as is being demonstrated in the very large and small sizes in the ATS Program. For the midsize program, however, the emphasis for DOE support would be on component development while private sector funding provides most of the demonstration program. Such a program would provide national benefits in export earnings. The products would be attractive in foreign countries, both industrialized and developing. Basic gas turbines developed and manufactured in the US would be exported to serve these foreign markets.

A DOE program for the development of advanced, mid-sized (30-150 MW) gas turbines, optimized for midrange capacity factor with rapid start capability is recommended for funding, starting in FY97. The program would consist of four phases over approximately six years, with multiple contractors in the first three phases and a single contractor in the final (Utility System Demonstration) phase. Cost share requirements in each phase would be the same percentages as in the ATS Program, except that the demonstration phase is 90% cost shared. This brings the total program to 45% cost shared.

Fuel Cell/Gas Turbine Hybrid Systems

Combining fuel cells with gas turbines for land based power generation and cogeneration is an exciting concept which enhances overall system performance. The combined system vastly improves air emissions, and reduces cost of power compared to fuel cell/gas turbine "hybrid" systems.

Fuel cells are being developed as power sources for both the automotive and stationary power applications. The US Department of Energy, the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), and several small and big companies are currently participating in this jointly sponsored development activity. Fuel cells coupled with the state-of-the-art gas turbines, offer the potential to greatly improve the overall efficiency, and generate power cleanly, compared to gas turbines. Fuel cells could operate in a bottoming cycle mode or in a topping cycle mode with a gas turbine, depending on the type of fuel cell that is coupled with a gas turbine.

During the October 1995 DOE ATS Annual Program Review meeting, the Department of Energy sponsored session on very high efficiency, clean power systems, which would be available by 2010. Such systems could utilize ATS program technology in latter phase of development. The proposed concept included combining fuel cells with industrial gas turbines. Preliminary studies by various manufacturers of fuel cells and gas turbines indicate major improvement in performance and emissions could be achieved by these combinations.

The development of combined fuel cell/gas turbine systems would require a feasibility assessment to optimize the combined system cycle, development of interface components, an accelerated development of candidate fuel cell(s), and prototype system performance evaluation. The gas turbine for this demonstration would be a production engine, with appropriate acceptability for adaptation to a fuel cell cycle.

The consensus was that existing fuel cell programs sufficiently address the fuel cell development issue -- from concept formulation and components evaluation phases, to the development and testing of fuel cells, with emphasis on reduction of projected cost of production fuel cells. Coupling of fuel cells with gas turbines will impact the operating parameters of each individual power source which is optimized separately. A new set of optimized combined operating parameters would be necessary for each individual power source in the system. The need for efficient interface components, such as heat exchangers and recuperates, was highlighted during the session.

Estimates for the cost and schedule of a development program, utilizing a fuel cell and an existing gas turbine, with system output of 10 to 20 megawatts, were also generated. With regards to the availability of "hybrid" systems for applications by the year 2010, it was indicated that preliminary activities on the development of combined systems should be started in the Fiscal Year 1997 at the latest.

GTA endorses the DOE session finding on very high efficiency hybrid power systems, and supports the development of hybrid power systems, which would combine fuel cells and gas turbines to generate highly efficient and clean power for power generation and cogeneration applications. GTA encourages the government to work

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