§16298b High Efficiency Turbines

Summary

The Secretary of Energy (through the Assistant Secretary for Fossil Energy) must set up a multi-year, multi-phase research and testing program to make gas turbines for power plants and aircraft more efficient. The program must fund first-of-a-kind engineering and detailed designs for small and utility-scale turbines and work on materials, heat transfer, manufacturing for complex parts, cleaner high-temperature combustion, controls and systems, better compressors, and test facilities. It must include component, subscale, and full-scale testing, field demonstrations, system performance assessments, work to run turbines on high amounts of hydrogen or other renewable gases, research for low-emission combustion at high pressure and temperature, and ways to shorten startup time and improve flexible operation. The Secretary can add other needed elements after consulting industry. The program has two goal phases. Phase I must develop designs and show technology that can reach, on a lower heating value basis, at least 65% combined cycle efficiency or at least 47% simple cycle efficiency, and aviation turbines that cut fuel burn by 25% versus today’s best turbofan engines. Phase II must aim for at least 67% combined cycle or at least 50% simple cycle. The Secretary may give grants and other financial help and must ask for proposals not later than 180 days after December 27, 2020. Project awards must be competitive, emphasize technical merit, and give special weight to U.S. job creation and U.S. technology leadership. Cost sharing rules in section 16352 apply. Up to $50,000,000 is authorized each year for fiscal years 2021 through 2025.