General Electric Company

Duncan George Watt

Scott Victor Hannula

Kamlesh Mundra

Andrew Maxwell Peter

Raymond Pang

Huijuan Chen

Thomas Arthur Gadoury

Thermal energy storage is leveraged to store thermal energy extracted from a bottom cycle heat engine. The thermal energy stored in the thermal energy storage is used to supplement power generation by the bottom cycle heat engine. In one embodiment, a thermal storage unit storing a thermal storage working medium is configured to discharge thermal energy into the working fluid of the bottom cycle heat engine to supplement power generation. In one embodiment, the thermal storage unit includes a cold tank containing the thermal storage working medium in a cold state and a hot tank containing the working medium in a heated state. At least one heat exchanger in flow communication with the bottom cycle heat engine and the thermal storage unit facilitates a direct heat transfer of thermal energy between the thermal storage working medium and the working fluid used in the bottom cycle heat engine.

Thermal energy storage unit with steam and gas turbine system

A system configured to thermally regulate exhaust portions of a power plant system (e.g. steam turbine) is disclosed. In one embodiment, a system includes: a condenser adapted to connect to and thermally regulate exhaust portions of a steam turbine; and a cooling system operably connected to the condenser and adapted to supply a cooling fluid to the condenser, the cooling system including a solar absorption chiller adapted to adjust a temperature of the cooling fluid.

Condenser cooling system and method including solar absorption chiller

A steam turbine performance testing system, including at least one computer hardware device, including a neural network created using a dynamic steam turbine thermodynamic model and preliminary data collected from a steam turbine; a network tester for testing the neural network with testing data; a current performance calculator for calculating a current performance of the steam turbine from operation data of the steam turbine; and a projected performance calculator for calculating a projected performance of the steam turbine from the current performance.

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Clifton Park, NY, United States of America

Duncan George Watt