An electric utility grid connected test facility has been established at Silicon Valley Power (SVP) in Santa Clara, California to validate the reliability, availability, maintainability, and durability (RAMD) of a commercial-ready catalytic combustor system (XONON). Installed in the Silicon Valley Test Facility (SVTF) is a 1.5MW Kawasaki MIA-13A gas turbine fitted with a catalytic combustor. The gas turbine package is controlled by a Woodward MicroNet control system. The combustor utilizes a two stage lean premix preburner system to obtain the required catalyst inlet temperatures and low NOx over the operating load range. The fuel-air mixer incorporates counter rotating swirlers to mix the catalyst fuel and air to achieve the desired uniformity. The patented catalyst design is composed of specially coated metal foils. Overall engine performance was measured and the emissions were continuously monitored. As of Dec. 1999, emissions of NOx<2.5 ppmv and CO and UHC<6 ppmv have been maintained at 100 percent load for over 3700 hours of operation on the utility grid. The turbine continues to operated 24 hours a day, 7 days per week with commercial levels of unit availability.

Combustor hardware employing catalytic combustion technology has been developed for a 1.5 MW gas turbine. This system, combined with state of the art catalyst technology, was used to demonstrate ultra-low emissions on the engine. The demonstrator combustor utilizes a two stage lean premix preburner system to obtain the required catalyst inlet temperatures and low NOx over the operating load range. The performance of the preburner system was characterized during engine tests by measuring temperature rise and emissions just downstream of the preburner. A fuel schedule for the primary and secondary stages was selected to give NOx emissions below 2 ppmv at the engine exhaust. Overall engine performance was measured over the full load range. Emissions of NOx < 3 ppmv and CO and UHC < 5 ppmv were obtained at 72% to 100% load. Combustor dynamics were shown to be less than 0.3 psi(rms). This combustor operated for 1000 hours on a dynamometer test facility and showed low emissions performance over this period.

An electric utility grid connected test facility has been established at Silicon Valley Power (SVP) in Santa Clara, California to validate the reliability, availability, maintainability and durability (RAMD) of a commercial-ready catalytic combustor system (XONON). Installed in the Silicon Valley Test Facility (SVTF) is a 1.5MW Kawasaki M1A-13A gas turbine fitted with a catalytic combustor. The gas turbine package is controlled by a Woodward MicroNet control system. The combustor utilizes a two stage lean premix preburner system to obtain the required catalyst inlet temperatures and low NOx over the operating load range. The fuel-air mixer incorporates counter rotating swirlers to mix the catalyst fuel and air to achieve the desired uniformity. The patented catalyst design is composed of specially coated metal foils. Overall engine performance was measured and the emissions were continuously monitored. As of December 1999, emissions of NOx < 2.5 ppmv and CO and UHC < 6 ppmv have been maintained at 100% load for over 3700 hours of operation on the utility grid. The turbine continues to operate 24 hours a day, 7 days per week with commercial levels of unit availability.