21ST

SYMPOSIUM OF THE INDUSTRIAL APPLICATION OF GAS TURBINES COMMITTEE

BANFF, ALBERTA, CANADA
OCTOBER 2015

15-IAGT-101

SGT-700 DLE COMBUSTION SYSTEM EXTENDING

THE FUEL FLEXIBILITY
Mats Blomstedt, Anders Larsson
[email protected] [email protected]

Keywords: SGT-700, DLE Combustion, Fuel Flexibility

Abstract
Siemens Industrial Turbomachinery AB in Finspång, Sweden, manufactures gas
turbines in the load range from 19 to 50.5 MW. The SGT-700 (33 MW) gas turbine has
experience from more than one million hours of field operation using the 3rd generation
DLE (dry low emissions) system. The same DLE burner is also used as standard in the
SGT-800 (50.5 MW) engine and is an available option for the SGT-600 (25 MW) engine.
Highly reactive gas fuels containing components such as hydrogen, ethane, propane
or heavier hydrocarbons have traditionally been used in gas turbines with non-DLE
combustion systems, resulting in high NOx emissions. The DLE systems have commonly
only operated on natural gas fuels. Stricter environmental legislation pushes for the use
of DLE engines also for the more reactive fuel types, thus potentially introducing
combustion related problems such as flashback or instability. The stability and fuel
flexibility of the 3rd generation DLE system has been systematically verified on both
unreactive fuels containing nitrogen and reactive fuels containing hydrogen, ethane and
pentane. Some recent data from continued tests with hydrogen is presented in this work.
Propane was successfully used in the SGT-600 with DLE combustion system already
in the 90´s, where an engine accumulated around 10 000 hours of operation. NOx
emissions below 20 ppm were achievable at full load. Recently, ethane and propane has
gained an increased interest as turbine fuels. An important example is the shale gas
industry which has created an oversupply of low priced ethane and propane to the
market. Other chemical industries, such as PDH (propane dehydrogenation) plants could
also produce off-gases rich in ethane and or/propane. Propane or ethane could also be
suitable as backup fuels to natural gas as they have many advantages compared to
distillate fuels, which is commonly used as backup fuel for gas turbine installations.
Commercial operation on propane has been verified in a SGT-700 in mechanical
drive application for a PDH (propane dehydrogenation) plant in China. The gas turbine
also uses another fuel source of variable composition predominantly consisting of
ethane. The SGT-700 with DLE combustion system shows stable operation on both fuels
in any combination. The current work describes the operation on ethane and propane
rich fuels in the SGT-700.

The IAGT Committee is sponsored by the Canadian Gas Association and supported by the National Research
Council Canada. The IAGT Committee is not responsible for statements or opinions advanced in the technical
papers or at the Symposium or meeting discussions.
Table of contents
Abstract ............................................................................................................................. 1
Table of contents .............................................................................................................. 2
The SGT-700 and the 3rd generation DLE system ........................................................... 3
Fuel flexibility of the SGT-700 ........................................................................................... 5
Commercial operation on propane and ethane fuels ........................................................ 9
Conclusions .................................................................................................................... 11
References...................................................................................................................... 12

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The SGT-700 and the 3rd generation DLE system
Siemens manufactures gas turbines from 5 to 400MW output, in many locations
around the world. Siemens Industrial Turbomachinery AB (SIT AB) in Sweden
manufactures industrial gas turbines in the medium load range from 19 to 53 MW. The
industrial gas turbine models are listed in Table 1.
Table 1. Overview of the SIT AB medium sized industrial gas turbines
Turbine Power (MW) Combustion system

2nd Generation DLE

SGT-500 19
Non-DLE
2nd Generation DLE
SGT-600 25 3rd Generation DLE
Non-DLE
SGT-700 33 3rd Generation DLE
SGT-750 37 4th Generation DLE
SGT-800 53 3rd Generation DLE

The older machines (SGT-500 and SGT-600) are available both in Dry Low Emission
(DLE) version as well as non-DLE (conventional, diffusion flame). The SGT-700 and
SGT-800 only comes in DLE-version since this unique, design allows reliable and fuel
flexible operation at a lower investment cost than the non-DLE-design.
The 2nd generation DLE burner (see Figure 1) was developed to meet the increased
emissions requirements for the on-shore market. It was introduced in the SGT-600 gas
turbine in 1991. The SGT-600 combustion system is capable of NOx emission levels
below 25 ppm NOx using gas fuel. The DLE burner is a split cone with two main fuel
pipes. The combustion air enters in the two slots where also main fuel (stage 2) is
injected. The injection of pilot gas fuel (stage 1) as well as main liquid fuel is positioned in
the center of the burner. This design allows for operation across the full load range
without any staging of the combustion

Figure 1. The 2nd generation DLE burner

During the development of the SGT-700 and the SGT-800, the DLE technology was
brought one step further when the 3rd generation DLE burner was introduced. By using

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the experience from the 2nd generation technology, the NOx emissions were decreased
with natural gas fuel and the burner also delivered dry low emissions with distillate fuel.
The 3rd generation DLE burner utlizises the same design principle as the previous
version, but now the cone has been split in to four pieces, an additional mixing tube has
been introduced downstream the cone, the pilot fuel is now entering on the burner tip.
This design is used both in the SGT-700 and SGT-800 ; it is only the number of burners
that differs. The SGT-700 combustion system consists of 18 removable burners in an
annular combustor (where the SGT-800 comes with 30 burners).

Figure 2. The 3rd generation DLE burner

The 3rd generation DLE system emits below 15 ppm NOx emissions on natural gas
and 42 ppm NOx on liquid fuel [1]. With the latest development efforts [2] it is possible to
transfer the low NOx and CO emissions with a turn-down to 50% load, without any
staging.
72 units of SGT-700 engines have been sold from where the split is approximately
50/50 between Power Generation and Mechanical Drive. The fleet leader has
accumulated 80 000 hours of operation and the fleet in total has accumulated more than
one million hours of field operation, all of them with DLE and with a reliability of >99.3%.

Figure 3. SGT-700 (33 MW) engine, with dual fuel capability,

available for MD and PG applications

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Fuel flexibility of the SGT-700
Fluctuations in market prices and availability of different fuels offers an advantage to
have the ability to operate on opportunity fuels thus giving the customer flexibility and in
the end improved profitability. Operation on non-standard fuels could also be important
for chemical or petrochemical plants when fuel streams with no or little commercial value
are created in their process. The use of these fuels in gas turbines could significantly
improve overall efficiency and economy of the plant as well as improving the
environmental footprint by reducing emissions.
Another reason for fuel flexibility could be the possibility to use hydrogen rich,
H2fuels, which may become an important source of fuel if electrical over-production of
renewables may be stored via H2-conversion.
The variety of gas fuels that gas turbine manufacturers are requested to operate on is
expanding. Figure 4 gives an overview of the wide range of fuel enquiries that SIT AB
have received during recent years, as illustrated by Wobbe index1 and heating value.

Figure 4. Gas fuel enquiries (blue dots) for SIT AB during the years 2011-2012

From such requests follows an increased need for testing and development of more
fuel flexible engines in general and combustion systems in particular. Older technologies
relying on diffusion combustion and injection of massive amounts of water/steam are
often no longer acceptable alternatives, hence pushing for modern flexible DLE solutions
also for the more exotic fuel types. Estimations on expected emissions and risks for
combustion related problems such as flashback and flameout must often be evaluated on

1
The fuel gas Wobbe index, WI, is defined as the lower heating value, LHV (volumetric) divided by the
square root of the relative density.

LHV ρ gas
WI  )
ρ rel (ρrel  ρ air
3
Nm (normal cubic meter) at 101.325 kPa and 273 K (0°C).

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a case by case basis. The wide spread in fuel qualities gives a clear need for combustion
testing as it may influence:
• Flame stability and combustion dynamics
• Flameout/flashback
• Hardware temperatures
• Emissions of NOx, CO and unburned hydrocarbons
During the last years, Siemens medium sized industrial gas turbines and their DLE
systems have been extensively tested and verified on both lean and rich gas fuel. On the
lean side this includes full engine operation on nitrogen rich fuel containing up to 40-50%
by volume of nitrogen [4] in the SGT-700 and SGT-800. The Wobbe index for these gas
compositions is around 22-25 MJ/Nm3 (Figure 4). Variations in Wobbe index and
composition were also possible without affecting the stability of the combustion system.
Figure 5 illustrates an instant stop of nitrogen supply to the natural gas/nitrogen mix,
resulting in Wobbe index variation rates exceeding 0.6 MJ/m 3/s. It can be noted that
engine power is kept constant and unaffected by the fuel change. However, NO x
emissions increase when nitrogen flow is reduced. This is an effect of “nitrogen dilution”
of the pilot fuel and after the fuel change is completed, the pilot fuel flow can be adjusted
to reach low NOx emissions also on natural gas. In practice, this means there is a need
for some type of fuel related emission control system when running on varying fuel
composition and emission legislation is stringent.

Figure 5. Stopping nitrogen supply (40 vol%) at 20 MW in SGT-700.

For the richer or more reactive fuels containing components such as hydrogen,
ethane, propane or heavier hydrocarbons, the 3 rd generation DLE system has also been
thoroughly verified. Pentane (C5H12) enriched natural gas has been successfully tested
[3, 5] as well as 100% ethane (C2H6) [6]. The ethane test was completed in order to
qualify the SGT-700 DLE engine for operating on ethane rich process gas for a customer

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in China. The commercial operation of the SGT-700 in this project is described in the
next section.
Hydrogen enriched natural gas was verified during engine operation in 2012 [6, 7].
Stable operation could be achieved using hydrogen fractions around 30-40% by volume,
resulting in the release of up to 15% for the 3rd generation DLE system, with a possibility
to accept higher fractions on a case by case basis. Further analysis of these hydrogen
tests indicated that minor modifications to the standard burner could improve the
hydrogen capability. Changes were implemented and new tests with modified burners
were performed during 2014. A criterion for acceptable burner modifications was that
natural gas capability should be kept with acceptable emissions.
Customer enquiries containing hydrogen rich fuels often come from a need for
disposal of a waste stream from a chemical plant or a refinery. The plant often also has a
need for mechanical or electrical power. Two types of operating situations can then be
envisaged with either a constant hydrogen flow and the engine power is varying or a
constant engine power with a varying hydrogen flow. An example of a test addressing the
first situation is shown in Figure 6 . The gas turbine is varied in load with standard ramp
between 27 and 10 MW with a constant flow of hydrogen corresponding to approximately
0.5 ton/h for an SGT-700. It can be seen that the hydrogen content in the fuel varies
between 50% and 75% as a consequence of the varying load. The high load case is run
with 50% to 60% hydrogen in the fuel. NOx emissions variation is a consequence of the
variation of pilot depending on load. Lower load needs higher pilot for stability, which
gives higher NOx.

Figure 6. SGT-700 test with constant hydrogen consumption at variable engine power.

The influence of hydrogen content on NOx emissions is shown in Figure 7 where

relative NOx value is shown at full load without pilot. A small increase of NO x can be seen
as hydrogen content increases, but the increase is only significant above 45% hydrogen.

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Figure 7. NOx vs hydrogen content during the SGT-700 test. Full load and no pilot fuel.

The 2014 tests confirmed the possibility to run the SGT-700 on high hydrogen fuels
with results indicating 40-50% H2 is possible at high loads. At lower loads, higher
hydrogen content is possible as can be seen in Figure 6. At 10 MW load, 100% H2 was
satisfactorily demonstrated, but the hydrogen flow had to be doubled and NOx emissions
were about 60% higher than the high load emissions.
Due to these development efforts and recent experience gained, SIT AB can expand
the acceptable fuel characteristics used in its gas turbines. Table 2 shows a general
specification for natural gas fuels suitable for the SGT-700, but now allows for extending
to 100% propane and/or ethane as well as hydrogen fractions up to 40-50% by volume.
The acceptable Wobbe indices range from approximately 25 to 80 MJ/Nm3 without
modifications to the burner hardware.
Table 2. Fuel specification for gas fuels, SGT-700
Max, Max,
Gas Fuel Constituent
New Previous
Methane, CH4 mole % 100 100

Ethane, C2H6 mole % 100 50

Propane, C3H8 mole % 100 50

Butanes and heavier alkanes, C4+ mole % 15 15

Hydrogen and carbon monoxide, H2 + mole % 50 15

CO
Inerts, N2/CO2 mole % 40/30 40/30

Hydrogen sulfide, H2S mole % 3 3

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Commercial operation on propane and ethane fuels
Natural gas liquids such as ethane and propane are produced by extraction and
separation from natural gas production streams via gas processing facilities and
fractionation. Propane and other types of liquefied petroleum gas are also produced as a
by-product of oil refineries. Associated gases used as gas turbine fuels could also
contain significant fraction of ethane and heavier hydrocarbons.
The requests for propane and ethane have not been very frequent until the last few
years, when they have gained an increased interest as gas turbine fuels. Apart from off-
gases from refineries there has also been an increased utilization of associated gases
containing heavy components. The main reason for almost pure ethane or propane being
relevant as gas turbine fuels is the low prices due to oversupply created from extraction
of natural gas liquids from the shale gas industry. Chemical industries, such as PDH
(propane dehydrogenation) plants could also produce off-gases rich in ethane, propane
and/or hydrogen. For PDH plants, propane could also be a suitable backup fuel as this is
available as the raw material in their process.
Followed by the acceptance test on ethane [6], one SGT-700 was sold to a PDH plant
in China for operation on ethane rich off-gas. A general picture of the PDH process is
shown in Figure 6. Propane is vaporized, heated and then dehydrogenated to propylene
in the catalytic reactor section. The reactor catalyst is regenerated with hot compressed
air. The reactor products pass through the purification section where compression,
refrigeration and distillation steps are used to separate the hydrocarbons into fuel gas
and products.

Figure 8. Schematic of a PDH process (Source: PetroLogistics LP). The main fuel is
entering in the marked position (“Fuel Gas”) but is also blended with other sources

This SGT-700 engine in this case operates in compressor drive application for
compressing the reactor product. Gas turbines could also be used for compression of the
regeneration air for the catalyst. This is the case for two other SGT-700 engines in

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another PDH plant in China. These engines currently operate on natural gas but are sold
with propane as backup fuel.
During commissioning of the gas turbine (for gas compression application), propane
was mainly used as fuel as this is the raw material in the PDH process. This fuel source
is also used during start-up of the plant. During normal operation the gas turbine also
uses the de-ethanizer off-gas. This gas has been variable in composition and has often
been used in combination with propane or even heavier fuel streams. See example fuel
compositions in Table 3.

Table 3. Example of fuel compositions for a SGT-700 in a PDH plant. (Note: Commercial
operation, after commissioning, starts at Day 1).
Component (mol %)

Hydrogen Nitrogen Methane Ethane Ethylene Propane Propylene Butanes Butenes Pentanes Pentenes
H2 N2 CH4 C2H6 C2H4 C3H8 C3H6 C4H10 C4H8 C5H12 C5H10 Others*
Day -21 - - 0.1 0.6 - 99.2 - 0.1 - - - -
Day -9 5.7 0.2 21.3 13.3 0.7 57.6 0.8 1.1 0.0 0.0 - -
Day 9 - - 0.0 0.9 - 79.9 0.0 18.9 0.2 0.0 0.1 0.1
Day 13 - 0.4 0.0 0.9 - 90.5 0.0 6.1 0.3 0.0 0.1 1.7
Day 14 - 0.1 - 0.6 - 65.6 0.0 13.8 1.0 0.3 0.2 18.4
Day 15 - - 0.0 1.0 - 93.7 0.0 4.9 0.2 0.0 0.1 -
Day 15 - 0.1 0.0 0.4 - 62.3 0.0 15.3 1.1 0.3 0.2 20.3
Day 34 - - 8.6 56.6 2.6 13.5 0.0 10.7 0.6 0.1 0.1 7.3
Day 38 - 0.4 1.3 50.3 1.6 23.3 0.0 20.9 1.1 0.1 0.1 1.0
Day 44 - 0.1 12.9 67.0 3.8 13.8 0.0 1.8 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.5
Day 49 - 0.0 0.8 16.8 0.5 37.9 1.1 23.3 2.9 0.4 0.6 15.8
Day 52 - 0.1 10.7 65.8 3.4 14.9 0.0 3.9 0.4 0.0 0.0 0.8
Day 155 9.5 0.0 18.6 51.7 5.7 14.4 0.0 0.1 0.0 - - 0.0
Day 157 0.1 0.0 1.5 32.7 1.4 58.9 0.0 3.8 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.4
Day 162 4.3 0.2 13.8 56.3 3.5 19.9 0.0 1.1 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.6
Day 165 0.6 0.0 16.5 66.7 4.0 11.1 0.0 0.5 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.5
Day 173 0.3 0.1 12.1 48.7 2.4 34.3 0.0 1.7 0.1 0.2 0.0 0.2
Day 178 - 0.0 0.0 0.6 - 95.0 0.0 2.2 0.1 0.0 0.1 2.0
Day 181 - 0.0 0.1 0.5 - 79.9 0.0 14.3 1.0 0.2 0.2 3.8
Day 183 0.9 0.0 16.9 46.9 3.1 29.1 0.0 1.5 0.2 0.0 0.1 1.2
Day 186 0.2 - 15.7 63.1 4.8 10.3 0.0 3.9 0.6 0.0 0.1 1.3
Day 189 0.1 - 10.2 83.5 5.5 0.1 0.0 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.4
Day 199 0.1 0.0 14.2 77.2 6.8 0.7 0.0 0.4 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.3

* C6+, Dienes, Propyne, Acetylene, etc

As can be seen, the analyzed content of ethane plus ethylene varies between 0 and
almost 90%. Propane content varies between 0 and 99%. Often there are also a lot of
butanes present in the fuel gas. On occasion there has also been hydrogen fraction
around 10% in the gas as well as 20% of heavier hydrocarbon such as hexanes. The fuel
supply temperature is usually around 120-140°C to ensure that condensation will not
occur. The SGT-700 with DLE combustion system shows stable operation on these
variable fuel compositions and the transitions between them. So far, the engine has
accumulated around 7000 hours of operation. An example of 150 days of continuous
operation is shown in Figure 9. Four of the compositions from Table 3 are also marked in
the graph.

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 High C6+

High C3

High H2

High C2

Figure 9. SGT-700 MD power output during 150 days of continuous operation

There is no continuous emission measurement of the exhaust gas, but a few

measurements done with a temporary system indicate NOx emissions well below 25
ppmv were achieved during these measurements. For full flexibility and simple control,
the engine is usually running with higher pilot fuel flow, resulting in emissions around 30-
35 ppmv. Emissions of carbon monoxide, CO, are negligible.

Conclusions
The SGT-700 gas turbine with DLE combustion system has proven its fuel flexibility
by operation on a wide range of both lean and rich gas fuels. Recent development testing
shows the ability to operate on hydrogen rich fuels. Also, commercial operation in a PDH
plant show an extreme variability in fuel compositions delivered to the gas turbine. These
fuels include high levels of ethane, propane, hydrogen, butanes, unsaturated
hydrocarbons and also heavier hydrocarbons. The SGT-700 shows stable operation and
low emissions on these variable fuel streams.

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References
[1] Hellberg, A., Norden, G., “Siemens SGT-700 Gas Turbine performance upgrade yields
more power and higher efficiency”, Power-Gen Europe 2009, Cologne, Germany

[2] Manrique, A., Andersson, M., Bonaldo, A., Larsson, A., Blomstedt, M., “Extended low
emissions capabilities of the SGT-700 DLE combustion system”, Power-Gen Europe
2015, June 9-11, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

[3] Andersson, M., Larsson, A., Lindholm, A., Larfeldt, J., “Extended Fuel Flexibility Testing of
Siemens Industrial Gas Turbines: A Novel Approach”, Proceedings of ASME Turbo Expo
2012, GT2012-69027, June 11-15, Copenhagen, Denmark

[4] Larfeldt, J., Larsson, A., Andersson, M., “SGT-700 and SGT-800 fuel flexibility testing
activities”, The Future of Gas Turbine Technology, 6th International Conference, 2012,
October 17,18, Brussels, Belgium

[5] Andersson, M., Larsson, A., Manrique Carrera, A., ”Pentane rich fuels for standard
Siemens DLE gas turbines”, Proceedings of ASME Turbo Expo 2011, GT2011-46099,
June 6-10, Vancouver, Canada

[6] Bonaldo, A., Larsson, A., Andersson, M., “Engine testing using highly reactive fuels on
Siemens industrial gas turbines”, Proceedings of ASME Turbo Expo 2014, GT2014-
26023, June 16-20, Düsseldorf, Germany

[7] Andersson, M., Larfeldt, J., Larsson, A., “Co-firing with hydrogen in industrial gas
turbines”, Swedish Gas Technology Centre Report 256, 2013

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