Companies producing gas turbines, in our country no more than ten. There are even fewer manufacturers of ground equipment based on gas turbines. Among them are ZAO Nevsky Zavod, OAO Saturn - Gas Turbines and OAO Perm Motor Plant (part of the UEC of Rostec Corporation).
In Russia, all the conditions have been formed for the rapid development of the gas turbine market for land-based applications, analysts at EnergyLand.info believe. The need for distributed generation, based not on diesel fuel, but on cleaner sources, is becoming more and more urgent. There are almost no doubts about the effectiveness of combined-cycle plants.
However, there are no more than ten enterprises producing gas turbines in our country. There are even fewer manufacturers of ground equipment based on gas turbines.
In the Soviet Union, stakes were placed on coal, oil and other calorific sources. Therefore, the first gas turbines were produced only in the 1950s. And first of all in relation to aviation construction.
In the 1990s, the development of power gas turbines based on engines created by NPO Saturn for aircraft began.
Today, the production of ground power equipment based on NPO Saturn engines is carried out by Saturn - Gas Turbines OJSC. Perm Motor Plant has mastered the production of gas turbine power plants based on the developments of Aviadvigatel JSC.
At the same time, the nominal capacity of the serial production of these enterprises does not exceed 25 MW on average. There are several machines with a unit capacity of 110 MW based on the developments of NPO Saturn, but today they continue to be refined.
Turbines of high power are supplied mainly by foreign companies. Russian enterprises seek to enter into cooperation with world leaders.
However, not all world leaders are interested in organizing the production of gas turbines in Russia. One of the reasons is unstable demand for products. And it, in turn, largely depends on the level of energy consumption. Since 2010, energy consumption in Russia has grown steadily. But soon, according to experts, stagnation may occur. And the increase in demand in 2013-2014 will be only about 1% per year or even less.
According to Dmitry Solovyov, Deputy Chief Designer of OAO Saturn - Gas Turbines, similar reasons keep Russian companies from mastering the production of high power gas turbines. "For the production of powerful gas turbine plants(GTU) requires special equipment, machines of large diameters, installations for welding in vacuum, with chambers of the order of 5 by 5 m, he says. - To create such a production, you need to be confident in the sales market. And for this, the country should have a long-term program for the development of the energy sector, perhaps then enterprises will begin to invest in the modernization of the base.”
However, the absence of predictable prospects does not mean that there is no demand at all. Demand is definitely there. Both for turbines with a capacity of more than 150 MW, and for small gas turbines that require less capital costs, but are quite capable of increasing energy efficiency and payback.
The growth of the sales market may be due to the development of the regional energy sector and the commissioning of medium-capacity generating facilities. And gas turbines with a capacity of 4, 8, 16, 25 MW are the segment in which Russian manufacturers, who have already felt the market trend, mainly operate.
AT developed countries cogeneration plants low power- The usual thing. In Russia, their number is still significantly lower. The main difficulty for companies supplying small-capacity turbines is the insufficient solvency of potential customers.
Another traditional segment of the gas turbine market is generation facilities at oil and gas fields and main gas pipelines. Gas turbine power plants make it possible to effectively utilize associated petroleum gas, solving not only the problem of energy supply, but also rational use hydrocarbon resources.
According to the observations of the specialists of JSC "Saturn - Gas Turbines", in the pre-crisis years of 2006-2008 there was a surge of interest of oilmen in domestic gas turbines. Today this demand is at a stable level.
Modern trends in the improvement of gas turbines are largely associated with innovations for the oil industry. But not only. Challenges facing manufacturers:
- increase in efficiency,
- reducing the number of nodes in the turbine,
- increase in reliability,
- reduction of maintenance volumes,
- reduction of downtime during diagnostics of the technical condition.
The above can solve the problem of the high cost of service maintenance.
In addition, the creators of turbines strive to make them unpretentious to the gas used and the ability to work on liquid fuel.
And in the West, they are also worried that, regardless of the composition of the gas, the turbine would have good environmental performance.
A very important - promising - direction for improving gas turbines is associated with renewable energy sources (RES) and the prospects for the introduction of "smart grids". Initially, gas turbines were created as equipment that provides constant power output. However, the introduction of RES into the energy system automatically requires flexibility from other generation facilities. This flexibility makes it possible to ensure a stable power level in the network when there is insufficient renewable energy generation, for example, on calm or cloudy days.
Accordingly, a smart grid turbine should easily adapt to changes in the network and be designed for regular starts and stops without loss of resource. In the case of traditional gas turbines it's impossible.
Abroad, certain successes in this direction have already been achieved. For example, the new FlexEfficiency gas turbine is capable of reducing power from 750 MW to 100 MW and then gaining initial performance in 13 minutes, and when used with solar power plants will have an efficiency of up to 71%.
However, for the foreseeable future, the most common way to use gas turbines will still be their usual combination with steam turbines in combined cycle plants. In our country, the market for such cogeneration facilities is by no means complete and is waiting for saturation.
United Engine Corporation (UEC)- a company that includes more than 85% of the assets of Russian gas turbine equipment. An integrated structure that produces engines for military and civil aviation, space programs, installations of various capacities for the production of electrical and thermal energy, gas compressors and ship gas turbine units. In total, more than 70 thousand people work in the UEC. The company is headed by Vladislav Evgenyevich Masalov.
On October 24, LLC Russian Gas Turbines, a joint venture between General Electric, Inter RAO Group and OAO United Engine Corporation, opened a plant for the production, sale and maintenance of gas turbines of the 6FA type (6F.03) in Rybinsk, Yaroslavl Region.
The first two units, intended for delivery to the enterprises of OAO NK Rosneft, will be assembled in 2015. The maximum production capacity of the enterprise will be up to 20 gas turbine units per year, which will satisfy the demand for highly efficient power units for combined heat and power projects.
General Electric owns a 50% stake in the Russian Gas Turbines project, Inter RAO Group and UEC own 25% each.
Participants' investments in the creation and development of production amount to 5 billion rubles.
2. And they say that nothing is produced in Russia. Even the sanctions did not affect this project. 
3. Officials arrived to get acquainted with the enterprise and start production. 
4. They were given a tour of the enterprise. 
5. Official opening on an impromptu stage in the factory shop. 
6. CEO OOO Russian Gas Turbines Nadezhda Izotova. She said that she expects to bring the localization of domestic components up to 50% within five years, and Ron Pollett added that, possibly, up to 80%. It follows from this that turbines will soon be 80% Russian materials, which implies the creation of new jobs and enterprises in Russia. 
7. Nadezhda Izotova, Chairman of the Board of Inter RAO Boris Kovalchuk, President and CEO of GE in Russia Ron Pollett. 
8. Governor of the Yaroslavl Region Sergey Yastrebov. 
9. Production of 6FA gas turbine in Russia - unique example cooperation in the field of advanced technologies in power engineering. 
10. The 6FA turbine is a high-tech product with a combined cycle efficiency of more than 55%. 
11. Turbine 6FA features high reliability, compactness, ability to work on different types fuel, including in harsh climatic conditions, which leads to the widespread use of 6FA in power generation, district heating and industrial cogeneration. 
12. Thanks to Russian Gas Turbines, Rybinsk, the second largest city in the Yaroslavl region, is becoming a world-class gas turbine center. 
13. Factory building opens great prospects for the development of the region. The Rybinsk Aviation Technical Academy will be the supplier of personnel for Russian Gas Turbines. The staff of the enterprise will be about 150 people, 60 of them have already started work. GE provided the university with expensive equipment for student training, which can be used to model turbines in detail and make more accurate calculations. 
14. Truck fleet. 
15. Assembly shop of the plant. 
16. The opening of the plant will help create new jobs, increase the prestige of the engineering profession. 
17. On initial stage the annual output will be 14 units. The plant has already started assembling the first turbine. 
The difficult international situation is forcing Russia to speed up import substitution programs, especially in strategic sectors. In particular, in order to overcome dependence on imports in the energy sector, the Ministry of Energy and the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation are developing measures to support domestic turbine construction. Are Russian manufacturers, including the only specialized plant in the Ural Federal District, ready to meet the growing demand for new turbines, the RG correspondent found out.
At the new CHPP "Akademicheskaya" in Yekaterinburg, a turbine manufactured by UTZ is operating as part of a CCGT. Photo: Tatyana Andreeva / RG
Chairman of the State Duma Energy Committee Pavel Zavalny notes two main problems of the energy industry - its technological backwardness and high percent depreciation of the existing main equipment.
According to the Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation, over 60 percent of power equipment in Russia, in particular turbines, has exhausted its park resource. In the Ural Federal District, in Sverdlovsk region more than 70 percent of them, however, after the commissioning of new capacities, this percentage has slightly decreased, but still there is a lot of old equipment and it needs to be changed. After all, energy is not just one of the basic industries, the responsibility here is too high: imagine what will happen if you turn off the light and heat in winter, - says Yuri Brodov, head of the Turbines and Engines Department of the Ural Power Engineering Institute, UrFU, Doctor of Technical Sciences.
According to Zavalny, the fuel utilization rate at Russian thermal power plants is slightly above 50 percent, while the share of combined cycle gas plants (CCGTs) considered the most efficient is less than 15 percent. It should be noted that CCGTs were put into operation in Russia in the last decade - exclusively on the basis of imported equipment. The situation with the Siemens arbitration lawsuit regarding the alleged illegal delivery of their equipment to the Crimea showed what a trap this is. But it is unlikely that it will be possible to quickly solve the problem of import substitution.
The fact is that if domestic steam turbines have been quite competitive since the times of the USSR, then the situation with gas turbines is much worse.
When the Turbomotor Plant (TMZ) in the late 1970s and early 1980s was tasked with creating a 25 megawatt power gas turbine, it took 10 years (three samples were made that required further refinement). The last turbine was decommissioned in December 2012. In 1991, the development of a power gas turbine began in Ukraine; in 2001, RAO "UES of Russia" made a somewhat premature decision to organize serial production of the turbine at the site of the Saturn company. But it is still far from the creation of a competitive machine, - says Valery Neuimin, Ph.D.
Engineers are able to reproduce previously developed products, there is no question of creating a fundamentally new one
This is not only about the Ural Turbine Plant (UTZ is the assignee of TMZ. - Ed.), but also about other Russian manufacturers. Some time ago, at the state level, it was decided to buy gas turbines abroad, mainly in Germany. At that time, the plants curtailed the development of new gas turbines and switched for the most part to the manufacture of spare parts for them, - says Yuri Brodov. - But now the country has set the task of reviving domestic gas turbine construction, because it is impossible to depend on Western suppliers in such a responsible industry.
The same UTZ in last years actively participates in the construction of steam-gas units - supplies steam turbines for them. But along with them, foreign-made gas turbines are installed - Siemens, General Electric, Alstom, Mitsubishi.
Today, two and a half hundred imported gas turbines operate in Russia - according to the Ministry of Energy, they make up 63 percent of the total. About 300 new machines are required to modernize the industry, and by 2035 - twice as many. Therefore, the task was set to create worthy domestic developments and put production on stream. First of all, the problem is in high-power gas turbine plants - they simply do not exist, and attempts to create them have not yet been successful. So, the other day, the media reported that during the tests in December 2017, the last sample of the GTE-110 (GTE-110M - a joint development of Rosnano, Rostec and InterRAO) collapsed.
The state has high hopes for the Leningrad Metal Works (" Power Machines") - the largest manufacturer of steam and hydraulic turbines, which also has a joint venture with Siemens for the production of gas turbines. However, as Valery Neuimin notes, if initially our side in this joint venture had 60 percent of the shares, and the Germans 40, today the ratio is reversed - 35 and 65.
The German company is not interested in the development of competitive equipment by Russia - years of joint work testify to this, - Neuimin expresses doubts about the effectiveness of such a partnership.
In his opinion, in order to create its own production of gas turbines, the state must support at least two enterprises in the Russian Federation so that they compete with each other. And you shouldn’t develop a high-power machine right away - it’s better to first bring to mind a small turbine, say, with a capacity of 65 megawatts, work out the technology, as they say, fill your hand and then move on to a more serious model. Otherwise, the money will be thrown to the wind: "it's like instructing an unknown company to develop a spaceship, because a gas turbine is by no means simple thing", says the expert.
As for the production of other types of turbines in Russia, not everything is going smoothly here either. At first glance, the capacities are quite large: today, only UTZ, as RG was told at the enterprise, is capable of producing power equipment with a total capacity of up to 2.5 gigawatts per year. However, it is very conditional to call the machines produced by Russian factories new: for example, the T-295 turbine, designed to replace the T-250 designed in 1967, does not differ radically from its predecessor, although a number of innovations have been introduced into it.
Today, turbine developers are mainly engaged in "buttons for a suit," Valery Neuimin believes. - In fact, now there are people left at the factories who are still able to reproduce previously developed products, but there is no talk of creating a fundamentally new technology. This is a natural result of perestroika and the dashing 90s, when industrialists had to think about simply surviving. In fairness, we note: Soviet steam turbines were exceptionally reliable, a multiple margin of safety allowed power plants to operate for several decades without replacing equipment and without serious accidents. According to Valery Neuimin, modern steam turbines for thermal power plants have reached the limit of their efficiency, and the introduction of any innovations in existing designs will not radically improve this indicator. And for the time being, Russia cannot count on a quick breakthrough in gas turbine construction.
Tests of Russia's first high-capacity gas turbine were suspended due to an accident. This will delay the start of its production and require new investments - Power Machines may join the project as an investor
Gas turbine plant GTD-110M (Photo: Union of Machine Builders of Russia)
Tests of Russia's first high-capacity gas turbine GTD-110M (up to 120 MW) have been halted due to failed mechanisms, the TASS news agency reported. This was confirmed to RBC by representatives of the engineering center "Gas Turbine Technologies", which conducted the tests, and two of its shareholders - "Rosnano" and the United Engine Corporation (UEC) "Rostec".
“During the test testing of the GTD-110M gas turbine unit, an accident occurred, as a result of which the turbine was actually damaged,” a representative of the Gas Turbine Technologies Research Center told RBC. The purpose of the tests was to identify design flaws in order to avoid serious incidents during commercial operation in the power grid, he added. The UEC representative clarified that a number of mechanisms failed in December 2017, so the tests had to be stopped until the problems were fixed.
The development of its own high-power turbine in Russia has been carried out for a long time, but without much success, and in 2013 the subsidiary of UEC UEC-Saturn signed an investment agreement with Rusnano and Inter RAO to create a new generation turbine - GTD-110M, which was developed by the Gas Turbine Technologies Research Center. Inter RAO received 52.95% in this project, the Fund for Infrastructure and Educational Programs Rosnano - 42.34%, UEC-Saturn - 4.5%, the remaining 0.21% from the non-profit partnership CIET. Rosnano "was to finance the project and contribute 2.5 billion rubles to the authorized capital," Interfax wrote in 2013, citing a source close to one of the parties. The corporation participated in financing the project, its representative confirms. According to SPARK, the authorized capital of the engineering center is 2.43 billion rubles. In 2016, Gas Turbine Technologies also received a subsidy from the Ministry of Industry and Trade in the amount of 328 million rubles. for partial compensation of R&D costs in priority areas, follows from the data of the system.
Sanctioned turbines
Russia is in dire need of a domestic high-capacity gas turbine. Last year, due to the lack of its own technologies, Rostec's subsidiary Technopromexport, despite the sanctions, was forced to supply German Siemens turbines to new power plants in Crimea, which led to an international scandal. Siemens announced the suspension of work with Russian state-owned companies, and Technopromexport, as well as its head Sergei Topor-Gilka and two officials from the Ministry of Energy - Andrey Cherezov and Evgeny Grabchak - fell under European and American sanctions.
It was planned that the tests would be completed in 2017, but then this period was postponed for six months - to the middle of 2018, the launch of equipment into mass production was also planned for this year, recalls
A gloating article appeared in the Western press that the construction of new power plants in Crimea actually stopped due to Western sanctions - after all, we supposedly forgot how to make turbines for power plants ourselves and bowed to Western companies, which are now forced to curtail their operations due to sanctions. deliveries and thereby leave Russia without turbines for energy.
“The project called for Siemens turbines to be installed at the power plants. However, in this case, this German engineering company risks violating the sanctions regime. Sources say that in the absence of turbines, the project faces serious delays. Siemens officials have always said that they did not intend to implement supply of equipment.
Russia studied the possibility of acquiring turbines from Iran, making changes to the project to install turbines Russian production, as well as the use of Western turbines previously purchased by Russia and already located on its territory. Each of these alternatives comes with its own challenges, which sources say officials and project leaders are unable to agree on how to move forward.
This story demonstrates that, despite official denials, Western sanctions do have a real impact. negative impact on the Russian economy. It also sheds light on the decision-making mechanism under Vladimir Putin. It is about the propensity of high officials, according to sources close to the Kremlin, to make grandiose political promises that are almost impossible to realize.
"Back in October 2016, company representatives at a briefing in Munich reported that Siemens excludes the use of its gas turbines at thermal power plants in the Crimea. We are talking about gas turbines that are manufactured in Russia at the Siemens gas turbine technology plant in St. Petersburg, which was put into operation in 2015. The shares in this company are distributed as follows: Siemens - 65%, Power Machines - beneficiary A. Mordashov - 35%. 160 MW, and in the contract signed in the spring of 2016, a thermal power plant in Taman is indicated.
In fact, it so happened that since the times of the USSR, the production of gas turbine units for power plants was concentrated at 3 enterprises - in the then Leningrad, as well as in Nikolaev and Kharkov. Accordingly, during the collapse of the USSR, Russia was left with only one such plant - LMZ. Since 2001, this plant has been manufacturing Siemens turbines under license.
"It all started in 1991, when a joint venture was created - then still LMZ and Siemens - for the assembly of gas turbines. An agreement was signed on the transfer of technologies to the then Leningradsky metal plant, which is now part of OJSC Power Machines. This joint venture produced 19 turbines in 10 years. Over the years, LMZ has accumulated production experience in order to learn how to not only assemble these turbines, but also manufacture some components on their own. Based on this experience, in 2001 a license agreement was concluded with Siemens for the right to manufacture, sell and after-sales service of turbines of the same type. They received the Russian marking GTE-160".
Where did their developments go, which were successfully carried out there over the previous approximately 40 years, is unclear. As a result, domestic power engineering (gas turbine building) was left with nothing. Now we have to beg abroad in search of turbines. Even in Iran.
"Rostec Corporation has reached an agreement with the Iranian company Mapna, which produces German gas turbines under license from Siemens. Thus, gas turbines manufactured in Iran according to the drawings of the German Siemens can be installed at new power plants in Crimea."