The duty cycle picks the machine.
Most bad power projects start with the equipment that was available rather than the equipment that was right. Here is how we decide, and where we would tell you not to buy an asset we are mandated on.
Start with six inputs
Everything else follows from these.
- 01Run hours per year
- 02Start profile
- 03Fuel price and supply
- 04Emissions basis and permit path
- 05Footprint and noise
- 06Redeployment plan at end of term
Three answers, and the duty each one is built for
Aeroderivative
Fastest start, highest cycling tolerance, best heat rate in its class, shortest delivery. Higher cost per installed kW and a maintenance regime built around engine exchange rather than site overhaul. The right answer for bridge duty, variable load, and anywhere a five minute start matters.
Heavy frame
The best absolute output and the best fuel economy per MW at sustained load, particularly in combined cycle. Slower to start, less tolerant of cycling, larger footprint, and a longer route through permitting where the combustion system predates dry low-NOx.
Reciprocating engines
Modular, tolerant of part load, and drawing on a supply chain entirely separate from the turbine queue. Attractive where capacity needs to grow in increments and where a single large machine is more redundancy risk than the site can carry.
Where used equipment is the wrong answer
We will tell you to buy new, or to buy a different class, when:
- The plant will run baseload for twenty years on pipeline gas at market price, and the heat rate difference outruns the capital saving.
- Your permit basis requires an emissions performance the unit cannot reach without replacing the combustion system, at which point the economics change.
- The control platform is obsolete and the upgrade cost approaches the value of the machine.
- Parts support for the frame class has thinned to the point where an unplanned outage becomes an open-ended one.
What we check before we will publish an asset
Title and identity, then records, then the machine itself — and we mark every asset with how far down that list we actually got.
Tell us the duty cycle.
Run hours, start profile and the date you need power. We will tell you which class fits, and whether anything we are working on suits it.