2 Market environment
Looking at the European power market as a supplier opens up a quite challenging picture. Liberali-
zation and deregulation, massive support of renewable energy in countries like Germany or Spain
and the planned shut down of nuclear power stations in various European countries change the
power market fundamentally. Further on, it is still unclear how the political and economical bound-
ary conditions will develop in future: The level of liberalization and deregulation of power markets
Service
Life-cycle cost Optimization
High efficiency and power ouput
EPC
Short construction time
I&C
Advanced operating flexibility
Generators High reliability and availability
Hydrogen/water
cooled
generator
GT-auxiliaries
Air cooled
condenser Hydrogen cooled
generator
Fuel gas-skid
2000s
1990s Competitive Solution
1980s Reference Power Plant in an Open Market
Customized Solution Design
Standardization and modularization are the main focus for increasing quality. The objectives of high
quality, low costs, and short lead times can only be reached with pre-design and pre-engineered
plants. It is a necessity that the RPP is as close as possible to the clients needs without requiring
redesign of key plant components. Therefore, the RPP development takes place in close contact to
our customers. In Quality Function Deployment (QFD) workshops, different design variants for
certain features and requirements are discussed with customers. The needs of the customers are
identified and the best solution, which meets the demands regarding technical performance and life
cycle costs optimization, is selected. During the development phase customers participate in design
reviews and can give their input directly to the RPP development team.
Through close contact to construction, commissioning and operating plants, lessons learned from
executed projects flow back to the development. For example, the RPP SCC5-4000F Single Shaft
incorporates the experiences of more than 20 units.
Siemens established a Product Development Process to guarantee an outstanding design quality.
One important component of this process is a review of the work progress after every design stage
like concept design, basic design or detailed design by all faculties along the development, operat-
ing and service path. This close monitoring ensures on one hand that the RPP provides an optimal
technical concept and on the other hand that it meets the market expectations. Further on, the proc-
This enables Siemens to design a large number of plants with an identical turbine building, while
offering the customer the flexibility to meet their site-specific requirements. Major customer bene-
fits of the modularized and standardized RPP concept compared to a tailor made plant are:
- low initial investment and reduced lead time
- higher availability
Siemens provides two Single Shaft concepts in the 400 MW class for the 50 Hz market. In this pa-
per, the focus is on the SCC5-4000F Single Shaft (SST5-5000), however a short description of the
SSC5-4000F Single Shaft (SST5-3000) is given here:
Generator
Bus duct Single side
Condenser
Air Intake
The building concept as shown in figure 6 comprises proven advantages. Key features are:
- Steam turbine connected to the generator through SSS clutch for high availability and oper-
ating flexibility
- Generator between gas turbine and steam turbine
- Low level arrangement of power train
- Large loading bay for convenient construction and maintenance
- Full load crane for rapid construction
- Single side exhaust of the steam turbine
The single side exhaust of the steam turbine into a single condenser allows a reduced width of the
turbine building as shown in figure 7. This minimizes the footprint of the plant and the overall costs
compared to the saddlebag condenser design.
LP turbine
The crane concept for the SCC5-4000F Single Shaft (SST5-5000) considers a full load overhead
crane and a 100 t overhead crane for the construction of LP turbine components and the condenser
(figure 8). This crane is mounted on an elevated bridge to keep the interfering edge off the full load
crane and to provide the necessary height of the crane hook. Therefore, the building height could be
reduced. This crane concept is designed for erection and maintenance without any additional tempo-
rary lifting devices. It ensures short project lead time and reduced planned outage durations.
370 t crane 100 t crane Formatiert: Schriftart: 9 pt
Interfering edge
Formatiert: Schriftart: 9 pt
Formatiert: Schriftart: 9 pt, Englisch
(USA)
Increased crane hook height through ele- Formatiert: Schriftart: 9 pt, Englisch
(USA)
vated bridge allows reduced building height
Formatiert: Links
Figure 8: Crane concept: Full load crane (left) and 100 t crane (right)
5 Operating flexibility
Drum
Thick-walled Separator Omitted HP
HP drum limits drum allows
operating high operating
flexibility due to flexibility
high thermal
Natural
stresses
circulation
Exhaust Gas flow
Natural Exhaust Gas flow flow
circulation characteristics
principle are maintained
Evaporator
Superheater
Superheater
Evaporator
The once through design in the HP part eliminates the thick-walled HP drum and is capable to han-
dle high temperature transients during a fast start-up. The HP drum is replaced by a small separator
vessel. The separator performs the function of water/steam separation during start-up and shutdown.
At steady state operation, including low loads, the steam flow passes through the separator as part
of the interconnecting piping toward the superheater. The steam at the evaporator outlet is slightly
superheated; consequently no separation occurs.
The HRSG planned for the Siemens Reference Plant incorporates the BENSON once through de-
sign in the HP section of the Boiler. The IP and LP sections remain in conventional drum type de-
sign.
Comprising, the Siemens BENSON HRSG retains all the positive features offered by the traditional
drum-type HRSG, while providing enhanced cycling capability over drum-type HRSGs.
6 Conclusion
Siemens developed the Reference Power Plant (RPP) approach as an answer to the requirements of
a competitive deregulated power market. Input for the RPP development is an extensive analysis of
the customer needs through Quality Function Deployment (QFD). In deregulated markets, the cus-
tomer focus on life cycle costs (LCCs). The plant concept with lowest LCCs in the 400 MW class
is a single shaft plant that shows advantages over a 1x1 multi shaft plant like higher efficiency,
higher availability and smaller footprint. Hence, Siemens developed a single shaft incorporating a