Feature Story:

2008 was an extremely challenging year for the global economy, with the financial, manufacturing and housing industries all suffering. And there is unlikely to be any respite in 2009. Set against this backd rop, supplying the energy, food and water to meet predicted global demands is going to be a monumental task. GENERATE looks at the challenges ahead.

Here’s a staggering statistic: in one month you consume more electricity than your grandparents consumed in an entire year when they were your age. Fifty years ago color TVs were still a precious commodity, the automatic washing machine had only just been invented and desktop computers and dishwashers didn’t even exist. Electricity is the lifeblood of today’s world and powers not just all these and essentials such as communications and transport networks, but also a range of household goods, entertainment systems, toys and even cars. It’s impossible to imagine life without electricity. But that’s nothing compared with what the next 25 years are predicted to bring. The world is going to become ever more electrified and energy hungry. In its 2008 International Energy Outlook, the US government’s Department of Energy (DoE) estimated that global electricity demand will almost double by 2030 to 33.3 trillion kilowatt hours per year.

40 per cent of all electricity generated comes from coal


Who is going to be using all this energy? Where will it come from? And can we generate that much electricity without greenhouse gas emissions from power stations causing runaway climate change and bringing major environmental disasters? It won’t be western nations who account for most of this growth in energy demand. Though our appetite for electricity will grow – the DoE predicts at a steady rate of around 1.3 per cent per year – over 80 per cent of the growth in global electricity demand will come from emerging economies, chiefly China, India and Brazil.

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GEA and the energy industry

Almost 90 years ago, GEA developed industrial air cooling technology and built its first Air Cooled Condenser for the energy industry back in 1939. Since then it has become a major player on the world’s energy stage and its knowledge, reliability and Engineering Excellence are central to a wide range of energy projects. The group’s Thermal Engineering Division, which has operations worldwide, has won a string of contracts to supply equipment to power plants across the world in recent years and it is well placed to help meet the predicted surge in global energy demand.

Heat transfer technology – GEA’s central offering for the energy industry – plays a central role in the world’s power stations, oil refineries, petrochemical plants, gas pipelines and GTL (gas to liquid) and LNG installations and biomass facilities. GEA’s energy portfolio features:

  • Air Cooled Heat Exchangers (also known as Air Fin Coolers) for direct dry cooling, used in any application where heat needs to be transferred in large quantities. Air cooling is used at all modern industrial facilities (from energy generation to energy transportation) – air is unlimited, free and does not require treatment.
  • Air Cooled Condensers, for direct condensing, which are used to condense steam in a power or process
  • Wet cooling (a two-step method – water is cooled in a Wet Cooling Tower and then the cooled water cools or condenses the fluid or steam).
  • Indirect dry cooling by means of Heller® cooling towers (a two-step method – water is cooled in a Dry Cooling Tower and the cooled water cools or condenses the fluid or steam).
  • Special applications (e.g. de-sublimination, crystallization).

GEA has a presence in energy’s biggest growth market – Asia. GEA’s Chinese operations have won a series of major contracts to supply Air Cooled Condensers and Air Fin Coolers for the power stations, oil and gas industries that will power China’s future. In India, GEA is supplying components to the country’s rapidly developing petrochemical industry and the power plant industry.


GEA is also a big player in supplying cooling technology for new power stations and the
petrochemical industry in South Africa. And in the Middle East, where water is scarce, the growth of refineries, GTL plants and gas processing plants has created a new market for air cooling, which GEA is helping to supply from its manufacturing site in Qatar. Geothermal energy is one of the lesser-known forms of electricity generation. Power is generated from beneath the earth’s crust by extracting hot water and converting it into steam. Pilot geothermal energy projects are underway to explore its potential and a number of GEA Group companies are involved in one such project in Bavaria, Germany, supplying cooling towers and plate heat exchangers.

 

 

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