Economic assessment of the installation of natural gas-fuelled microturbines and results of preliminary tests

The major breakthrough in the gas turbine industry has allowed construction of small size machines that feature electric capacities ranging from 25 to 100 kW (the so called microturbines). A high specific capacity, a low cost and a somewhat significant power efficiency are all properties of these machines associated with low noise, low pollutant emissions and low maintenance requirements. It is for all the above mentioned reasons that the microturbines are expected to have a significant market penetration in the niche of the stand-by (field generators), automotive and stationary power generation. Their design providing parallel, mains and co-gen power generation make them virtually fit the needs of a diversified range of users. This paper is intended to provide a preliminary economic assessment of their application at MV users´ (within the Italian power and gas tariffs relevant to noneligible customers) and to report the main results from the tests carried out on a 45 kW machine