Gas turbine combustion technologies for natural gas fuel - Technical issues and forecast for 21st century

The consumption of natural gas for gas turbine is steadily increasing world wide. In Japan, approximately 1/4 of the electricity is now generated by natural gas firing thermal power plant. The main reason for this increase is the higher thermal efficiency achieved by the advanced gas turbine combined cycle and the higher potential of low emission of the fuel. Natural gas is the ideal fuel for the large consumption by the gas turbine for power generation use, since it is suitable for giant energy transportation from gas source to demand point either by pipe line or large Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) vessel, and the cleanness of the fuel is beneficial for both gas turbine hot parts and exhaust emission. The current topic for the gas turbine combustion technologies is the premix dry low emission combustion system and how to control the stable combustion with this. This paper describes the over all view of current natural gas utilization for gas turbine, basic feature of gas turbine combustion technologies, a nd forecast of the future technical issues.