Turkey - GE gas turbines for wind energy

A hybrid electric plant designed by General Electric. Mirrors focus sunlight on power towers, top right, that make steam that is injected through pipes into a turbine,center, to make electricity. Wind turbines, rear, make electricity to either help run the plant or to feed the grid.

How can the electric system take intermittent energy sources like wind and sun and integrate them with conventional fuels for electricity, like natural gas? GE Energy and eSolar will cooperate on deploying integrated solar combined cycle (ISCC) technology under an investment and licensing agreement. eSolar provides tower-based concentrating solar power (CSP) technology.

GE Technology Enables Plant Efficiency Greater than 70 Percent through Unprecedented Integration with Wind Energy and Solar Power. GE Energy (Atlanta, Georgia, US) announced that it has entered into an investment and licensing agreement with eSolar Inc. (Burbank, California, US) that it says will enable it to deploy hybrid concentrated solar energy (CSP).

By designing the plant from a total equipment and control systems perspective and utilizing the flexibility of GE’s FlexEfficiency technology, engineers were able to seamlessly integrate natural gas, wind and solar thermal power. The FlexEfficiency 50 IRCC plant is designed for flexible operation by integrating a next-generation 50 Hz 9FB Gas Turbine, a steam turbine, a generator, 22 MW of GE wind turbines and 50 MW of eSolar concentrated solar thermal tower technology, all integrated by a GE Mark* VIe plant control system.