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un set de production d’électricité à moteurs alternatifs
English translation: dual fuel capable generation
15:45 Dec 29, 2019
French to English translations [PRO] Tech/Engineering - Energy / Power Generation / O&M Agreement
French term or phrase:un set de production d’électricité à moteurs alternatifs
This clause described the set up of electricity generation plant and I'm sure there's a technical phrase for this other than the one I make out from the individual terms.
"[The plant] est équipé d’un set de production d’électricité à moteurs alternatifs avec ou sans Turbine à Vapeur, et fonctionnant au HFO (fioul) ou au Gaz Naturel."
I'm not sure what other context would be helpful here.
Explanation: I'd likely say the "plant will have dual fuel capability," leaving the with/without turbine engine as an implicit choice dependent on whether the fuel is liquid (oil). But maybe some would prefer to say it more literally.
I'm just finishing off this mammoth project and will post an update tomorrow. There was a lot more info in the equipment lease and I found the manufacturer's marketing blurb which explains a lot more.
Having done a great deal of work over many years with these industrial-scale generating plants, I can assure you that the situation is one whole lot more complicated than that — and if different drive motor technology is used, there are even greater complexities, like optimization of the speed control loops, for one!
ordinary "clutch" would do the trick. One engine stays uncoupled to the generator and kicks in and gets coupled to the generator only when and if needed (while the other engine gets uncoupled). Nothing unfeasible.
Maybe no one has done it so far, but it seems to me quite a good solution.
These diesel powered generators are likely to be for "internal use" - for that they would make sense. In any electricity producing plant you need some "internal" source of power to start the big generators ... and when they are off.
It is highly unusual, since there'd have to be a way of uncoupling the 'spare' motor to avoid an unaccepetably large mechancial load; but more importantly, the use of reciprocating engines is rare in power plants, for a number of perfectly valid technical reasons. In any case, Asker has now confirmed this is for a 'combined cycle' plant, so I think that rules them out even more...
the idea of having two engines hooked to the same generator of electricity might be unusual, but it doesn't sound strange to me at all.
If only the engine fails, and not the electricity generator, it's enough to have another back-up engine to keep the generator running, costs far les than having another whole set engine+generator as a back-up.
BTW, these generators powered by diesel engines might be only for the internal needs of the power plant (autoconsommation), not for the grid.
@Tony it's not helped by the fact that the ST has errors in it which makes me wonder how accurate the terminology actually is! I'm submitting a draft to the client tomorrow with comments...!
That's exactly what I initially thought: a reiprocating internal combustion engine (usually diesel) can indeed be used to run a generator, though usually only smaller ones, not the size you get in a power plant. But then as soon as we start talking about turbines, that idea goes out of the window, since only in the most bizarre scenario might we imagine both together! Your wider context might give some clues... It's perfectly possible that an internal combustion engine might work on either HFO or gas, but it's not clear where the steam turbine might get involved? Though I'm not sure you could run a turbin on HFO (!!), so that might be being used in a boiler to produce the stem. I note that there appears to be only one 'generating set', yet they talk about 'moteurs' in the plural. I hope these are all points that are obvious from your overall context, but remain a mystery to me taken in isolation.
In USA I think the "set" is what energy litigators (not engineer here, sorry) back in the day would call a dual fuel or combined cycle generator, or combustion turbine (CT). The alternative motors are either the choice between with/without steam turbine (vapeur) depending on which fuel. The point of the CT is to have a "peaker" generating plant that can be fired up relatively fast with gas, for the sake of more spontaneity in response to demand fluctuations albeit at higher cost than a "baseload" generator which needs more startup time but is the cheapest alternative for prolonged operation because all other fuels are cheaper than gas.
Hi Tony, I found a translation of à moteurs alternatifs as "reciprocating engines", but that doesn't make a great deal of sense to me as I'm not familiar with "engines" being used in the context of a power plant.
'set de production d'électricité' = 'generating set'
As for the 'moteurs alternatifs', do they simply mean that it can be driven by various different types of motor?
Automatic update in 00:
Answers
38 mins confidence: peer agreement (net): -1
dual fuel capable generation
Explanation: I'd likely say the "plant will have dual fuel capability," leaving the with/without turbine engine as an implicit choice dependent on whether the fuel is liquid (oil). But maybe some would prefer to say it more literally.
[electricity] generator set powered by reciprocating engines
Explanation: "[The plant] est équipé d’un set de production d’électricité à moteurs alternatifs avec ou sans Turbine à Vapeur, et fonctionnant au HFO (fioul) ou au Gaz Naturel."
un set de production d’électricité = a set of electricity generators + à moteurs alternatifs = these electricity generators are powered by "reciprocating engines"
Parsing:
à moteurs alternatifs ...fonctionnant au HFO (fioul) ou au Gaz Naturel. => these reciprocating engines are "dual fuel"
avec ou sans Turbine à Vapeur => there might be also a steam turbine added as an alternative power source for the generators
Daryo United Kingdom Local time: 05:30 Native speaker of: Serbian, French PRO pts in category: 23
Notes to answerer
Asker: Now that I've translated all the schedules and found more references online, I can see that Daryo's answer is the most accurate. Here's another useful reference: https://www.power-eng.com/2017/06/09/reciprocating-engine-generator-technology/
Asker: Daryo, I messed up and chose the wrong answer. I've opened a ticket to have it reversed.
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