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Enhanced efficiency option for reciprocating power plants

With natural resources becoming scarcer and scarcer and ever increasing environmental demands by governments, efficiency in reciprocating power plants is becoming a key issue for our customers. To support our wide base of customers operating in this field, Cummins Generator Technologies, under the AvK brand, will be launching a high efficiency version of the popular DIG 167 range.

Although customers have attested good to very good efficiencies on the machines so far, Cummins Generator Technologies saw a further demand for even better performance. Based on the use of a higher grade electrical steel lamination the AvK DIG 167 can now be offered with losses that have been reduced by 7 to 12%!

This might not seem massive, but at outputs of up to 16,700kVA per machine and power plants consisting of 18 such units, the savings quickly add up. Depending on the point of view, the customer can either reduce the amount of fuel burnt to generate a fixed amount of power or generate a higher output while keeping fuel consumption at the same level.

To demonstrate, at 0.10$ per kWh, a power plant consisting of a single generating-set, running in continuous mode would be modeled as follows. Typical efficiency values of a higher efficiency AvK DIG 167 versus a competitor generator:

Operational profile of a typical continuous duty power plant:

 

The savings for the DIG 167 e/8 versus the competitor generator would be:

 

As you can see this is a substantial benefit. If one now considers higher sales prices for energy during peak hours, as one sees in deregulated markets like Texas, USA, the benefit will be considerably higher. We believe this to be a competitive benefit for our customers thus enabling them to be more successful, in turn, we expect to see this as a key driver in the coming years and are expecting significantly higher volumes in this range.

The AvK DIG 167 high efficiency range is now available and can be offered with the usual suite of options, from different AVRs to water cooled versions. DIG 167 is offered in all standard MV ranges from 3.3kV to 13.8kV in 8 and 10 pole versions. Typical engines that can be fitted with these machines are made by all major players.