Business & Technology : Thursday, March 01, 2001

Power woes boost jet-engine sales

By Leslie Gornstein The Associated Press

LOS ANGELES - California, New York and other states scrambling to head off an expected summertime power crunch are looking toward the same turbines that power commercial jetliners.

The quest for medium-sized power generators also is boosting business at General Electric, Rolls-Royce and Pratt & Whitney, companies that otherwise build engines for Boeing jetliners.

At GE, revenue for the division that transforms the turbines into power-generating engines has grown from $410 million when GE bought it in 1998 to an expected $2 billion this year.

The waiting-list time for a GE LM600 generator has grown to a year since summer, company officials said.

Connecticut-based Pratt & Whitney, which makes a "twin-pack" of two Boeing 737-derived generators, also has seen demand soar.

"We are looking at building over 100 this year, as opposed to a couple dozen a few years ago," spokesman Mark Sullivan said.

From 1998 to 2000, revenues in Pratt's power-systems division more than doubled, Sullivan said.

The California Energy Commission is promoting use of the engines as part of the state's plan to add 1,000 megawatts of power to be generated at peak demand times, 5-9 a.m. and 5-9 p.m., this summer.

Other plants used to meet that goal run on diesel. Such "peaker" engines generate small amounts of power, roughly 50 megawatts each, and run for only a few hours at a time.

The turbines made by GE and the other companies burn natural gas instead of airplane fuel but otherwise are nearly identical to an airplane engine.

"They take the front fan off, but the generator looks the same," said Rick Kennedy, spokesman for GE Aircraft Engines.

Some of the demand for the engines is due to the power crunch affecting California and spreading throughout the Pacific Northwest.

"We have seen quite a demand for these kinds of units," said Peter Gibson, vice president of sales for Rolls-Royce. "Demand out West is just one of the things we have seen. A lot of independent producers are looking for power immediately."

The New York Power Authority has ordered 11 GE generators that will be running in New York and Long Island by June. The authority expects to spend $500 million on the turbines, a cost that includes buying land and building the structures to house the engines, authority spokesman Mike Petralia said.

A Boeing 747 engine made by GE can cost $8 million to $10 million. A power generator made with most of the same parts but modified to produce electricity costs $15 million to $20 million, GE officials said.

http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis/web/vortex/display?slug=jetpower01&date=20010301

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), March 04, 2001

Answers

I wonder how they're converting these engines that produce thrust to one that will produce torque. The fan they're removing is the first row of blades on the compressor which forces about 75% of the air around the outside of the engine. This enables the engine to produce a large amount of thrust and at the same increases the engine's efficiency. It appears this will lower the efficiency of this machine and consequently, much natural gas or diesel will be burned.

-- David Williams (DAVIDWILL@prodigy.net), March 05, 2001.