Before handing over their power plant located at Lausward, Düsseldorf to Stadtwerke Düsseldorf AG, Siemens carried out a test run of their H-class gas turbine and achieved an electrical net output of 603.8 megawatts (MW) on unit ‘Fortuna’, a new record for a combined cycle plant of this type in a single-shaft configuration. This is a new world record of around 61.5% for net power-generating efficiency, enabling Siemens to beat its own efficiency record of 60.75% set in May 2011 at the Ulrich Hartmann power plant located in Irsching in the south of Germany.

In addition, the company claims unit “Fortuna” can deliver up to 300 MW for the district heating system of Düsseldorf – a further international peak value for a power plant equipped with only one gas and steam turbine, states Siemens. This boosts the plant’s fuel utilization up to 85%, while reducing CO2 emissions to 230 gram per kilowatt-hour. “We optimized the power plant to enable it to be ideally positioned in one of the world’s most demanding power markets,” stated Willi Meixner, CEO of the Power and Gas Division within Siemens AG. “Together with the Stadtwerke Düsseldorf we are therefore very pleased that this plant set the new efficiency world record.”. 

Siemens states that the gas turbine can run at full load in less than 25 minutes after a hot start, enabling it to also be used as a backup for renewables-based power production. This flexibility supports the operator in efforts to achieve economical operations in a challenging environment for conventional power plants.

The company claims that a natural-gas-fired combined cycle power plant such as this one with an electrical efficiency of 61.5%, theoretically saves approximately 2.5 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) annually. This corresponds to the amount of CO2 emitted by 1.25 million passenger cars, each driving 15,000 kilometers a year.