Steam Center Blog

A s the planet runs out of fossil fuels, humans need to find viable alternatives to produce energy and electricity if they are not to return to the dark ages again. Already rising fuel costs are putting a strain on humans. Aside from temporary ups and downs this strain is bound to increase in future since simply put, we reduce the amount of available fossil fuel every day we live while no new such fuel is being produced. It takes millions of years for mother earth to produce these fuels that have driven modern civilization over the past few centuries. Photovoltaic systems that produce electricity with help of sunshine are emerging as a promising alternative. The primary difficulty so far has been cost but their costs have been coming down over the past few years. Already for certain applications they have become competitive with traditional methods. For example the cost of electricity from these solar cells is cheaper than diesel generator sets for stand alone operations s...

Small and simple gas turbine power plants to produce electricity for communities isolated from a grid or a community wishing to remain so can be a reliable means of power supply at reasonable rates. Such power plants need to be simple in order to reduce maintenance needs. Research engineers love to play with thermodynamics and will go to any lengths to increase thermal efficiency even if it means that the final constructed plant is complex, expensive and results in frequent maintenance shut downs. For a gas turbine plant this implies using multistage turbines with intermediate heating and several heat exchangers. While the additional complexity may be justified for large gas turbine plants where thermal efficiency has an important bearing on running costs, it is not advisable for small independently managed gas turbine power plants that range from a few kilowatts to a Megawatt capacity. A gas turbine plant involves a compressor stage coupled to a turbine for expansion. Heating o...