MeeFog Adds 64MW of Power Augmentation to Mexican Power Plant

Installation Specifications:

The Tuxpan combined cycle plant had media type evaporative coolers installed on each of the Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems (MHPS) 501F gas turbines. The MeeFog systems were installed downstream of the existing evaporative media. The nozzle manifolds provide a few degrees of evaporative cooling because the media-type evaporative coolers are not 100% effective, and additional wet compression spray with a flow rate equal to 1% of the air mass flow of the gas turbines. Mee Industries provided turnkey installation of the wet compression systems including connection to water and electrical supplies. General Electric provided controls modifications with support from Mee’s engineers.

The Tuxpan Power Plant consists of two identical power blocks, each equipped with two MHPS 501F gas turbines, two heat recovery boilers, and one steam turbine. Each block has a power output of approximately 500 MW. As part of the project, two fog pump skids were installed at each gas turbine along with fog nozzle manifolds in the inlet duct. These systems are designed to provide 14 equal stages of fog spray output, with each stage comprising 71 fog nozzles, totaling 994 fog nozzles.

Results:

The 14 stages of wet compression are tied into the gas turbine controls so the grid authority has control over the amount of power augmentation via the automatic generation signal. This allows for seamless control of the amount of power augmentation above base load as required by the grid authority. Prior to the installation, the MHPS 501F turbines with evaporative coolers produced 164.2 MW each. This was increased to 180 MW with Wet Compression. The systems gave the plant a total of 64 MW of additional power to sell into the Mexican grid.